Where the Heart Is
by Miaka
Summary: Anna's life is turned upside-down after meeting a spoiled, brutally handsome celebrity on a trip overseas. Frozen take on the series "Full House". Other Disney characters also featured.
1. Chapter 1

The tabletops at Café Winter were made of glass so that customers could admire the small aquariums built within while dining. Anna watched two goldfish; the larger of the two was nearly red while the smaller was bright orange with a pale belly. The fish chased each other from left to right and back, across a miniature bridge and through water ferns. As she followed their endless pursuit, she tried to feel excitement while her companion spoke of the coming holidays.

"Oh, and Sven should be home for Christmas Day!" Kristoff exclaimed, his warm eyes lighting up at the mention of his younger brother. "We'll have to get him something obnoxious from the Christmas market. It's tradition."

 _His eyes are kind_ , Anna thought when she finally looked up and listened. She made an effort to smile as she cupped her hand around her steaming cup's handle and sipped from her tea.

The truth was, it was taking her a lot of effort to feel a thing. It wasn't fair to Kristoff, she knew. But she tried anyway.

"My family's so excited to meet you," he said softly, his excitement toned down a little.

Anna merely nodded and glanced back down at the two goldfish. They had found each other and were swimming side by side in a circle now, seemingly content until Kristoff set his soda glass down and startled them into swimming in opposite directions.

"You're not here today," he noted. "Where's your head at?"

His concern bore into her, wringing her heart until her guilt pooled into a heavy puddle in her stomach. Anna tried a little harder when she smiled this time.

"Of course I'm here, silly."

He looked doubtful. Then, hope crept over his face as he tried to change the subject. "I bumped into Rapunzel this morning."

Anna tensed up.

"I know you're still not on speaking terms, but she asked about how you are... the baby should be coming soon—"

"Just stop, okay? I'm _never_ going to talk to her again. Never mind the fact that she should be arrested."

"She's your cousin," Kristoff argued. "...your _pregnant_ cousin."

"Then Eugene should go to prison. He probably did all the work anyway, knowing Rapunzel."

"Don't you think you're being harsh?"

Anna was grateful that the waiter returned at that particular moment to serve them. But then her eyes fell upon the neatly de-crusted, quartered sandwiches spread across the tray put between her and Kristoff. She knew then it was time to leave. She grabbed her coat off the back of her chair.

"I'm really sorry. I have to go."

She stood as she excused herself and briskly left the café before he could stop her. Truthfully, it wasn't his fault. The sandwiches had made her appetite disappear. They made her think of the idiot who lived in her house now.

* * *

 _A YEAR AGO, CHRISTMAS EVE_

Someone snored as loudly as a train passing. Then, she realized it was herself. When had she fallen asleep? The blaring white screen in front of her hurt her eyes. She looked away, searching for the red numbers of her digital clock back on her nightstand across the room. The motion felt like knives to her poor neck and shoulders. It was twelve after seven, meaning she'd been asleep at her desk at least a few hours.

Anna groaned as she let her weary eyes adjust to the menacing light of the word document staring back at her. She'd barely gotten a thousand words throughout the night. She knew why, too. There'd be no use in pushing herself.

Resolved to taking a break, she set her computer to sleep mode and stood up to stretch. It turned out sleeping at her desk wasn't terribly good for her back or knees either. Being able to fall asleep easily was both a blessing and a curse.

She turned on her task lamp and tilted it down toward her desk so she'd be able to see without being blinded. Then she turned around and looked around the mess in her room, clucking her tongue as she debated whether to clean first or shower first. Elsa would have been aghast at the piles of dirty laundry, notebooks, chocolate boxes, miscellaneous mail, plates and tea cups sitting everywhere.

The thought of her older sister stung. Ultimately, it was what drove her to take a shower first. She hoped the hot water would relieve both the aches in her body and heart.

* * *

About an hour later, the sun was up, the mess in her room was forgotten and Anna was nearly done with a batch of pancakes for herself. The sweet and meaty scent of the bacon piled upon a plate already on her breakfast table had her rush the last two hotcakes, and so they didn't come out as nicely as the other six. Her mouth watered all the same as she sat down with the butter, syrup, bacon and pancakes before her. She paused to bask in the bright warmth of the kitchen, remembering when her parents used to surprise Elsa and herself with pancake breakfasts some Sunday mornings.

The fjord outside was frozen and covered in snow. She used to love white mornings like that when she and Elsa could go out and play in that winter wonderland.

She was just about to eat her first bite when the doorbell rang. She quickly popped the fluffy, sweet, buttery cake into her mouth before she got up. A month ago, she still wasn't answering the door or telephone. Her sister's passing had hit her so hard that she'd barely gotten by over the past few months. She'd been lucky the house was paid off, that she had a roof over her head and some money left to her. But those things had also allowed her to lock herself away in her house after Elsa's death. Work had tried calling every day that first month. Someone even tried stopping by to see her.

At some point, she doubted whether her old job would even welcome her back. An account manager was not exactly irreplaceable.

Anna cleared her mouth before answering the door. When she first saw her visitors, she was tempted to shut the door in their faces. But Eugene and Rapunzel were too swift. They tugged her into a hug buffered by their winter coats. Then they let themselves in, already chattering away about the snow outside, how great she looked and how she must be getting better sleep.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, not bothering to mask her annoyance. "Can't you call beforehand?"

Rapunzel whirled on her cousin with a wide-eyed, babyish pout that made Anna crack a half-smile for her.

"We thought we'd surprise you!" the blonde explained, throwing her hands up and twirling in a circle that was far too animated for Anna so early in the morning. "Wow, this place is a mess, Anna!"

Instantly, her smile vanished. "Well, that's why you _call_ a person before you show up at their home! Give them a chance to clean!" She crossed her arms in disapproval.

"Buh mmmf, ten we'dduh missed awll thih tasty, tasty bacon!" Eugene sang out from the kitchen.

With a little squeak, Anna stormed back out to her breakfast table with Rapunzel a hair's breadth behind her. She found her cousin's roguish boyfriend sitting in _her_ seat, dangling the last piece of bacon over his open mouth. He paused when he noticed the two women staring at him. Sensing he had crossed a certain boundary, he slowly placed the lonely strip of delicious, crispy meat back on the plate from whence it came.

"Please tell me you have a good reason for barging in on me and eating my breakfast," Anna snapped, her patience dropping from low to none.

"H-h-hey!" Rapunzel laughed nervously, patting Anna's shoulder in a useless effort to calm her down before she pummeled Eugene. "The truth is, we have a surprise for you!"

At that, Anna relaxed a little, though she still wasn't going to forgive Eugene for pilfering nearly all her bacon. She pulled out another chair for herself and sat so she could hear what the so-called surprise was.

"Good or bad surprise?" She figured she'd asked. Rapunzel seemed... nervous.

Then, Anna felt guilty. She used to be more like Rapunzel—carefree and bright. Elsa's death had crushed the light out of her. It was still in there somewhere, she knew. But there was a lot of healing needed for her to find that part of herself again. Her eyes softened as she looked at her cousin.

"Of course it's good!" Rapunzel looked indignant as she took a seat for herself across from Eugene. She then dug into the purple purse on her shoulder and withdrew an envelope, which she slowly pushed toward Anna.

The redhead raised her eyebrow as she pulled out the contents of the envelope. "You're both being weird... what is this?" She stared at the glossy silver wallet-sized folder in her hand with the logo for Star Airlines. When she looked up at her cousin, she found both Rapunzel and Eugene silently but wildly gesturing for her to keep looking. "A plane ticket... to Osaka, Japan?"

Rapunzel slammed her hands upon the breakfast table. Both Anna and Eugene jumped six inches out of their seats and stared at her as she squealed and threw her arms around Eugene in her overwhelming excitement. "It's a trip! A trip for you!"

"But..." Anna trailed off, wordlessly eyeing the kitchen around her. "I can't afford a trip to Japan."

Rapunzel grew a little solemn at that, but Eugene quickly jumped in. "It's all-inclusive, don't worry!"

 _That would be amazing_ , Anna thought. She'd always wanted to go to another country. Elsa was always traveling because of work. She'd bring back all sorts of stories from Europe, America and Asia. Anna had been so envious. Now, she'd finally have a chance to go somewhere different herself... but it seemed too good to be true.

"Wait a minute... you guys couldn't afford a trip like this. What's going on here?" She thought she saw Eugene squirm a little, but Rapunzel waved away Anna's suspicion.

"Eugene won it."

"You won it?" Anna asked carefully.

Eugene nodded.

"So why aren't _you_ two going?"

Eugene nodded again. Then, seeming to realize he'd been asked a question, he left the answer up to his girlfriend.

"Anna, come on... you've barely left this house in four months. You need this way more than we do," Rapunzel said. She reached out to squeeze Anna's hand in her own. Anna frowned, unable to refute the remark. While she'd cooped herself up to deal with her grief, she hadn't been 'dealing' well at all. Elsa's room was exactly as it was before Elsa died. Anna had only been in there once in the past few months. She couldn't bear to get rid of anything. It was like losing her parents all over again, and that had taken years to cope with.

Maybe Rapunzel was right. Maybe she needed this. She glanced at Eugene and smiled. He probably would prefer to take the trip with his girlfriend. It was good of him to let Rapunzel do this.

Suddenly, Rapunzel cleared her throat and released Anna's hand. "But the flight's this afternoon," she said meekly.

"What?!"

* * *

Anna tried to steady her breathing after running to the security checkpoint at the airport. She glanced once over her shoulder and waved back to her cousin and Eugene near a kiosk some feet away. She had a single white carry-on suitcase which Rapunzel had helped her pack in less than an hour so that Eugene could drive them all to the airport.

By the time she sat waiting at her gate, she was stunned to even be there. The entire morning had felt like a whirlwind. She stared down at her passport and ticket, her thumb running over the word 'Osaka'.

Japan! To think, everything was arranged! But she'd never been to Japan. Why did the trip have to be so far away? Couldn't she just go to Denmark?

 _Relax, Anna_.

She tried. Rapunzel had sworn that she and Eugene would look after the house while Anna was away. She looked down in her lap and frowned, realizing it would be the first Christmas she spent away from home.

Then again, home hadn't felt the same once Elsa was gone.

Anna fell into a daze as she waited. When the time came to board, she was startled to just notice that her ticket was for first-class. She had to grin at that.

Even as she showed her ticket to the airline staff member at the gate, a part of her felt like there'd been some mistake. She expected someone to show up and take the ticket away or to drag her off to boarding group five, where she belonged. She even kept checking to make sure her name was on the ticket.

"Have a nice flight, miss!" The woman who scanned her ticket smiled and handed it back to her. Almost trembling with excitement, Anna smiled and followed the couple ahead of her down the boarding bridge.

She checked her ticket as the staff on board greeted her, all smiles. Her seat was 2B on the aisle. An older gentleman helped her get her carryon bag up in the overhead compartment, though he looked as brittle as a stick. Anna apologized and thanked him profusely before taking her seat and glancing all around her.

"Can I offer you something to drink?"

She blinked and looked up at a beautiful young woman in the Star Airline uniform. Dumbfounded by the service, Anna only nodded at first.

"What would you like?" the woman asked, still smiling.

"O-oh! I'll have water," she answered, looking unsure. "Are the drinks complimentary?"

The flight attendant nodded.

"I see... I'll still have water... for now. Thank you!"

The woman looked on the verge of giggling, but she was polite enough not to as she turned away.

Anna smiled to herself and looked to her right to stare out the window. There wasn't much of a view yet, just runways, jet bridges and parts of the airport. She immediately took a sip from her water when the flight attendant came back and handed it to her. As she sat and pondered what she might order later on, she wondered if Elsa always traveled first class when she flew. Her modeling agent probably saw to it.

The first class section filled up except for the seat next to hers. Anna had kind of hoped to have a flight companion. After all, it was a long flight, and her first flight! It would have been nice to have someone to talk to. But as the minutes ticked by and the other boarding groups trailed past her, she began to doubt that anyone would be in the seat next to her. On the plus side, maybe she'd be able to switch seats so she could look out the window.

Some time later, that idea fell through when Anna heard someone to her left clear his throat. She started, looking up and meeting the deep green eyes of an auburn haired prince.

Man, not prince. 'Prince' was her writing brain speaking.

"Sorry!" she said as she stood and shimmied out into the aisle so that he could reach his seat. He nodded wordlessly and took his seat at the window. "It's my first time flying, you know." She swallowed. She'd wanted a flight companion, but one this gorgeous was intimidating to speak to. Hopefully he was as kind as he was gorgeous. She eyed the expensive logo on his shirt jacket with a popped collar over a dark cardigan and lighter shirt underneath.

But the auburn man merely nodded at her before he looked out the window again. She leaned close to peer out with him, trying to see what it was that had caught his attention. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, looking uncomfortable as he asked, "Did you want the window seat?"

"Oh!" She beamed, taken by surprise that he'd asked. "Yes, that'd be awesome!"

Apparently a man of few words, he undid his seatbelt and stood to switch places with her. Anna plopped down in the window seat, smiling from ear to ear as she fastened her seat buckle and gazed out at other planes outside. She turned toward her companion to thank him once again and paused as she studied his profile.

"I know you!" she yelled, making him jump in his seat. "You're um... that actor! No... singer! Ah, what's your name, what's your name... sounds made up... err, sorry, no offense. I'm a writer, so I think of these things. Hans... Eastsomething..."

"...Westergaard," Hans corrected her, both his face and his tone void of amusement.

"That's it! Wow, ha! What are the odds?"

He looked away without answering. In fact, he slumped down a little in his seat. Anna rolled her eyes as she finally understood that he did not want to be bothered. How disappointingly expected of a celebrity! But she didn't let that ruin her flight. She sat back and stretched her legs out, enjoying the space provided to first class passengers.

She was a little nervous at takeoff, but once they were well in the air, Anna could not take her eyes away from the window. It wasn't until the flight attendant came back for drink orders that Anna looked away. She noticed the singer next to her had fallen asleep, and so she could unabashedly order a couple glasses of red wine. Not much of a drinker herself, Anna was perplexed when the flight attendant listed off all the options. In the end, she asked the nice woman to give her whatever she'd have herself.

Part of her felt odd about drinking alone, drinking at all. But she was supposed to be having fun. So why not?

She giggled as she sipped down the first glass and watched the clouds outside glow pink with the sunset as they crossed countries and time zones. Or was it sunrise? Anna laughed out loud as she tried to figure it out. Then, bored with the window, she pulled up the flight map on the screen in the seat in front of hers. She started fiddling around with the different channels to listen to music and watch movies, though she had to plug in her earphones for that. Much to her delight, the airline had some classic holiday movies available to see. She finished her second glass of wine to one of her and Elsa's favorites, an animation about Santa's reindeer.

As she switched between movies and music, the flight attendant came back several times. Once, she brought a meal of Japanese style noodles which had Anna's eyes grow wide. It was a kind of soup dish with vegetables, meat and seafood in it. She'd never tasted anything like it.

She had some more wine to go with her meal, and another after that. It wasn't until her fourth glass that her head began to spin a little. Anna was grateful when her meal tray was taken away from her so she could put up her table and rest her head on the seat in front of her. Only, that wasn't comfortable at all. She switched to leaning her head against the window. But that was too cold. Leaning back made her want to throw up. With a wistful groan, she started to lean to her left, vaguely recalling the stranger next to her might not appreciate such close contact. She felt, rather than saw, him twist in his seat and stare at her in disbelief as she groaned some more and shook her head.

"I think... I think I'm gonna be sick..." she admitted weakly. She thought of Elsa's soothingly cool hands on her forehead the time she'd come back wasted from a friend's party during college spring break.

"Please don't. Or, wait, turn the other way," Hans said, sounding hopeful. He even reached out to gently turn her by her shoulders so she would face her window.

"Ack, no! That's worse!" she whined, instantly turning back toward him. Even with everything feeling spinny, she could see him scowl. It made her want to cry. She didn't even know him. Why was he so rude? Were all celebrities so haughty? Then, she couldn't think any more of that as she gagged and lurched forward. She was able to stop herself.

Hans stared wide-eyed in horror, gesturing like a madman. She squinted in confusion as he moved his pointing finger from his mouth to his throat over and over again. Before she could even process what his gesturing meant, Anna retched and puked on his shirt jacket.

Five seconds later, she felt worlds better. Some part of her felt guilty as she could hear the singer mutter in disgust. She watched him stand to remove the jacket. She meant to apologize, but her eyes were getting so heavy. They started closing on their own. Pretty soon, she felt herself drifting as the alcohol carried her to slumber. In an effort to give poor Hans some of his much beloved space, she did manage to turn her head back toward the window.

She felt compelled to say something to him before sleep claimed her. An apology, wasn't it? She couldn't think clearly. She should say _something_.

But all she could think to murmur was, "Merry Christmas, honey..."

* * *

Anna woke to a splitting headache and cursed herself for drinking too much. There was a fine line between having fun and being stupid, and she had certainly crossed it. She blinked at a steady movement to her left and saw a line of people exiting the plane. This made her jump up and look at the empty seat next to her. The jerk didn't wake her when they landed?!

"Unbelievable," she mumbled. Then, she noticed the singer's shirt jacket sitting on his empty seat. "Oh... crap, he left this." She picked it up and excused herself as she jumped into the aisle in front of a disgruntled old man who looked like he could have been her grandfather's grandfather. She apologized as it took her a moment to jump up and retrieve her carryon bag. Once she had it, she scurried off the plane and into the terminal, looking left and right and pretty much everywhere for a sign of auburn hair. She bumped her way through thick crowds to get to the Kansai International customs. But Hans Westergaard was nowhere to be seen.

She sighed, looking down at the puke-stained jacket in her hand as she was directed to the line for foreign travelers. Again, the fancy brand logo made her eyebrows twitch. How could someone leave behind such an expensive article of clothing? Hans Westergaard must live in a world vastly different from her own. Chances were, their worlds would never collide again.

But if nothing else, she'd be able to tell people she sat next to a celebrity on her first flight.

* * *

 **A/N:** I was having a really hard time with NaNoWriMo, so I needed to just write something fun. This is a story I had in store for the new year. I'm pregnant now... and the holidays are coming up. So there's no way I'll be able to update as frequently as I did for Frozen in Time. But this is an ongoing story.

The first few chapters will closely follow the story this is based on. But this will have some Frozen and crossover Disney elements that will require me to make certain changes... and hey, that's not bad, because I don't want to copy the entire show. But I thought the concept of Hans and Anna being thrown together in this way would be fun to write. I hope you enjoy this! I'm sharing this rather late in the evening, so I'll go over this and polish it later. Thanks for reading!

*Edit to respond to guest review: lmao, no the story is not for Elsa haters. Just because she's not in the story does not mean I hate her. Go read my other fic, "Frozen in Time" if you want more Elsa. She just needed to be dead in this particular story for me to tell it the way I wanted to.


	2. Chapter 2

Rapunzel buried her slender hands into her charcoal coat pockets as she watched her cousin disappear into the crowds beyond the line for security. She knew that otherwise she'd grab Eugene's hand. If she did that, she wouldn't be able to keep up the cheerful front anymore... and if Anna were to look back, she'd know something was wrong.

So, she kept gazing ahead until an arm came to rest around her shoulders.

"She'll be all right, Punz," Eugene said in a low voice next to her ear. Rapunzel nodded stiffly, but she wasn't quite convinced. Her boyfriend must have sensed it, for he stepped around in front of her and laid both his hands on her shoulders.

"You said it yourself. Anna's a tough girl."

The blonde nodded again. That was true enough.

"I just keep thinking, she's been through so much already..."

"Punz... this was your idea." The gentle reminder stung a little, but Eugene was only stating a fact. She shifted her hands inside her pockets and gasped as her fingers brushed against something forgotten. Her green eyes instantly grew hot and teary as she pulled out cash bills she'd meant to give to Anna beforehand.

Eugene's light brown eyes darted from the cash to Rapunzel's tearful face. He sucked in a sympathetic breath through his teeth and brought his hands up to his girlfriend's cheeks.

"Hey, hey, hey," he whispered as she tried to avert her watery gaze. "It's gonna be okay! She's gonna be fine."

Rapunzel sniffled rather loudly. The noise paused some passersby in their tracks. She heard Eugene groan at the sudden attention, and she understood immediately. It looked like he had made her cry. In fact, two older women rolled their suitcases past them with disapproving glares on their faces. Eugene withered under their harsh stares and dropped his hands, but took up one of Rapunzel's.

"We'd better get back to the house. There's a lot of work to do..."

She nodded mutely and let him guide her out of the main concourse. It was a relief for Eugene to take over at this point, for Rapunzel found herself repeatedly sinking into her own thoughts. She brushed past people and wove through crowds until they came to the exit. Outside, the air bit at her still-damp cheeks. Eugene's hand tightened over her own as they braced themselves against the cold and made their way to the parking garage.

Rapunzel's daze was broken as a snowflake drifted in front of her face, making her think of her late cousin. At that moment, she had to really force herself to keep moving with Eugene even as the car came into view.

 _Elsa,_ she thought. During Elsa's life, Rapunzel had been closer to the older of the two sisters even though she was the same age as Anna. She supposed it came from having been roommates with Elsa for a good six years.

She frowned as she got into the front passenger seat, as if Elsa were watching and knew what she and Eugene were doing.

 _I'm sorry.. we wouldn't be doing this if we weren't desperate._

The car started on Eugene's second try, knocking Rapunzel's awareness back to the present moment. She glanced over at him and told herself then that Elsa would have understood.

It was Anna they needed to worry about now.

* * *

Anna took one look at the ticket machines and map for the airport train and withered away from the crowd with her bag in tow. It took her a few minutes to find her way outside and then to the taxi line. But she hopped into the first car and sat in awkward silence until the driver looked in his mirror and started speaking to her in a whirlwind of Japanese.

"Ah-ah-ah," she stammered, hating to interrupt the man. "S-sumimasen, nihongo wakarimasen..."

"Ah! Hello!"

Anna smiled back at the face grinning in the mirror from the front seat and nervously answered, "Hello..."

"Where do you want to go?"

She sighed with relief. "The Ritz-Carlton, please?"

"Hehhh... saikou na! Hai, O-K!"

What followed was the most frightening car ride in Anna's life. She gripped the car door handle beside her and held in squawk after squawk as the taxi launched forward, rocketing around other vehicles on its way to a long bridge that extended over the wide, blue bay. Anna clenched her teeth and relaxed only slightly once they crossed the bridge. The bay was still to her left. On the right, she could make out the tops of houses and buildings very different from those in Arendelle. Bright signs stuck out on the corners of some; of course she couldn't read them, but she imagined they were combinations of businesses and restaurants. She smiled and leaned a little toward the right window to get a closer look, though it was difficult with the wall that separated the highway from residential life. There'd be plenty of chances for her to explore, though.

It was a relief when there were breaks in the concrete, like when the taxi zoomed by a tree-lined park or when they crossed over bridges and eventually exited into the city proper. The driver sped through residential streets, expertly evading little old ladies and school children. Her favorite moments were crossing the canals.

Then, rather abruptly, the taxi came to a halt at a building surrounded by the busiest intersection of business suits, bright lights, shops and restaurants Anna had ever seen. Back at home, even if she hadn't become a recluse, she'd have avoided venturing to downtown Arendelle for fear of running into former friends and co-workers. Here, she realized, she was truly free from forced small talk and pitying eyes.

"Ja... nisen yonhyaku juu go en," the driver said.

Anna almost fell over in her seat. Yen! She'd forgotten to exchange her kroner back at the airport. Panicking, she started to open her door, clutching her bag close as she pulled out some bills from her pocket.

"Ah... doumo arigatou!" She yelped and flung a handful of kroner at him before she leapt out of the vehicle, immediately running toward the hotel entrance.

She heard shouts behind her as she reached two doormen in suits and top hats. "Nande ya nen, kono okane! Oi! Ojousan!"

Luckily, the doormen did not seem to make the connection between her and the shouting taxi driver. They opened the doors to let her in, each holding themselves in a little bow until she had entered the building. Luckily, the cab driver did not follow her in.

She gulped when she first entered the lobby, her white tennis sneakers clacking against the shiny flooring as she admired the dark wood walls and bright chandeliers dangling from the ceiling. Her ears detected faint classical music which might have had a calming effect on her if she wasn't starting to worry that she was in the wrong place. How could _she_ have a room at such a luxury hotel? But Rapunzel would not have made such a mistake, Anna was sure.

She cleared her throat and timidly made her way to the front desk to check in. There, a beautiful hotel clerk greeted her with a closed smile. Anna admired the woman's impeccable hair and makeup a little enviously.

"Welcome to the Ritz-Carlton. How may I help you?" the clerk asked. Anna's shoulders released some of their tension when she heard the clerk speak in her language.

"Y-yes... I have a reservation under Anna Frost," Anna answered, a little embarrassed as her reply came out sounding like a question. The clerk merely smiled and indicated that she would check for the reservation on her computer. Anna set her bag down by her feet while she waited. A low, male cadence of German caught Anna by surprise as a burly blond man came up beside her, talking on his phone. Anna couldn't help but glance over at him since he was a fellow foreigner. He caught her eye and nodded with a warm smile, which she couldn't help but return.

"Ooh?" she cooed. "Smiling to see another foreigner or is it because I'm pretty?"

She wouldn't have dreamed of saying something so flirtatious if she hadn't caught him speaking German. She giggled at her own boldness.

"I'm sorry, miss. There is no reservation under that name."

That wiped the smile right off Anna's face. She turned toward the hotel clerk, who looked as confused as Anna felt.

"Wh-what? Can you check again please?" Anna's brow furrowed with worry. Rapunzel and Eugene had said everything was pre-arranged in her name.

The clerk looked a little uncomfortable with the situation, but she nodded her head and typed into her computer again. A few seconds later, she met Anna's eyes again, looking helpless as she apologized again.

Just as Anna's heart began to sank, the clerk perked up, looking hopeful. "Eeto... dou iuka..."

"Nani ga iitai desu ka?" the German suddenly cut in, putting his phone away in his suit jacket pocket. Anna jumped at the sound of his voice switching to Japanese. She stared between him and the clerk.

The clerk's eyes darted over to the German. She quickly replied to whatever he'd said, leaving Anna lost in translation.

The blond nodded and turned to Anna when the clerk finished speaking. "Is it possible the reservation might be in another name?" He asked as clearly and comfortably in her language as if it were his own. Anna's face burned bright with embarrassment when she realized it might be.

She looked at the clerk again, hopeful. "Um... you can try Rapunzel DeCorona or Eugene Fitzherbert... please." She quickly jotted them down on a notepad on the countertop so the clerk would not have to guess at spelling.

The clerk smiled and typed in the first of the names. She frowned and tried the next one. But from the look on her face a second after, Anna prepared herself for the worst and gulped. She wasn't sure whether it was anxiety or too much traveling, but she was suddenly hit by a wave of exhaustion that made the situation that much worse.

"How long are you staying?" The question came from the man.

"What?" Anna turned toward the blond gentleman in some surprise. It was nice of him to try to help, but what could he actually do for her?

But she steeled herself against her inner negativity. "Oh... four nights..."

The man leaned closer to the desk and asked the clerk if there were any rooms available. Anna heard the clerk type into her computer again, trying not to get her hopes up.

"Yes! We have a queen bed available. It's just a standard view," the clerk explained.

"Is that all right?" the man asked Anna.

She nodded dumbly, a daze slowly settling over her. Even if he helped her get this room, she was still going to have to pay for it. But at least this bought her some time to sort out the confusion with Rapunzel and Eugene. Had there been some sort of mistake? Was she at the wrong hotel? Did they just mistakenly give her the wrong information?

The clerk finished checking her in and handed her a small folder which contained her key.

"Room 418 on the fourth floor."

Anna bowed her head in thanks and began to turn away when she stopped to give the gentleman a bow as well.

"Thank you...?"

He chuckled and said, "Kristoff Bjorgman. Happy to help! Enjoy your stay in Osaka..."

"Anna Frost," she said, assuming he trailed off to get her name. They smiled and waved as if to part ways but both ended up approaching the elevators. This made Anna chuckle awkwardly, as she was still embarrassed that he had understood her joke of a flirtation earlier. "You too!"

Kristoff pressed the up button for both of them and shook his head. "I live in the next city over, actually. Just here to visit a friend."

"Oh!"

"Hans Westergaard. Maybe you've heard of him back in Arendelle? You are from Arendelle, aren't you? I assumed because of the language..."

Anna nodded, a sour taste filling her mouth as she thought of the haughty celebrity from the plane. So, he was staying at the hotel? It figured. It _was_ a fancy hotel. _Bet he never has to worry about not having a_ reservation, she thought bitterly.

Well, it's not like she'd ever run into him. Osaka was a big city. The Ritz-Carlton was a big hotel. She glanced down at the puke-stained shirt poking out of her bag and subtly stuffed it out of sight.

"Yeah. I think I've heard of him," she said, keeping her tone neutral.

The elevator beeped and an automated voice inside announcing the floor startled Anna so much, she yelped. She thought she heard a quiet laugh beside her, but when she looked to Kristoff, he merely smiled.

"Heh..." she looked up at the digital display of the floor in red. "This is me!" She walked out, hugging her bag as she turned toward the kind man in the elevator and gave one last bow of thanks before the doors slid shut. Then, she took a deep breath and turned to look for her room.

* * *

 **A/N:** Corrections to the romaji certainly welcome. And in the interest of not taking forever to update, I've broken the second chapter down into smaller chapters. My apologies for the wait. With being sick and pregnant, it's hard to stick to a routine with writing, but I'll try to update again this month. Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

Rapunzel and her boyfriend spent Christmas Day cleaning. It wasn't ideal, but it was necessary.

The blonde woman barely heard her own thoughts over the blasting drone of the vacuum and the swishing gargles of the dishwasher downstairs; but this was not a bad thing. She started to bend to pick up yet another half-eaten box of chocolates from the staircase when her hair flopped down against her face. With a sigh, she yanked her long blond locks up, impatiently looping them into a sloppy braid which she wrapped at the top of her head and secured with the hair tie around her wrist. She reached into her denim pockets for the several bobby pins she'd collected from the stairs. Then, she stuck a few in to secure her hair and went back to collecting the myriad of junk on the steps.

Something that sounded like a turkey's gobble cried out against the roar of the vacuum, but she couldn't make sense of it. She chuckled and yelled, "What?!"

The vacuum paused for all of four seconds so that Eugene could yell out, "The buyer's on his way!" Then, it was on again, and Rapunzel could hear her boyfriend frantically running from one wall to the next in the living room. Fortunately, most of the floors were tiled or hardwood and had already been swept and mopped. But one thing was clear: the house had not had a deep-cleaning for quite some time. In fact, Anna had let the place become a pigsty.

Rapunzel shook her head as she cleared more from the stairs: slippers, books, a liter of apple juice right next to boxed wine, notebooks, pens, cough drops and hand sanitizer, letter openers, tissue boxes and more. She thought of how outraged Elsa would be to see her parents' house like this. Part of her wondered if she was partially at fault. Whenever she dropped in on Anna, typically with Eugene in tow, it was to beg for a favor... and usually that favor consisted of treating the couple to a meal out in town, though with the recluse Anna had become since Elsa's death, she usually just ended up giving them enough money for just the couple to dine out alone. It was that same reclusiveness and generosity that allowed Anna to be the unfortunate victim in what she and Eugene were doing.

But it was necessary, Rapunzel told herself, just like she told herself all those times she and Eugene dropped in on Anna were merely to check in on her cousin.

She almost tripped over a chess set at the top of the stairs because she was too fixated on the door across from the top landing. Without looking, she picked up the game and stowed it away in the garbage bag with all the other miscellaneous stair items. She didn't think she'd been upstairs since Elsa's passing—not even when she and Eugene visited. It was strange how someplace once 'home' could seem so unfamiliar now.

She dragged the garbage bag along and hesitated as she reached out for the crystal door knob. The nail for the sign that used to hang on the outside of the door was still there, though Elsa had taken the sign down years ago. It used to say, "Queens Only. Do Not Enter." The queens, of course, had been Elsa and herself. Anna was supposed to have knocked. From what Rapunzel understood, Elsa and Anna had finally grown closer after she moved out. But during the six years she lived under her aunt and uncle's roof, Elsa had been Rapunzel's dearest friend and confidante.

She steeled herself and opened the door. The room was dark, so she flicked the light switch on. Immediately, tears stung her eyes as she saw that Anna had not moved a thing in Elsa's room. The bedroom looked almost exactly like it had when Rapunzel last visited the two sisters.

Elsa had made some changes to the room over the years since Rapunzel moved out. The wintry blue and white motif remained, though none of the band and movie posters they had shared. Gone were the twin beds that took up each corner with one wide window between them. The twin white dressers had been removed too, replaced by one wider one. Now there was a single queen bed that jutted out from the righthand wall. With the way it was perfectly made, not a sheet sticking out from under the navy and white geo-pattern comforter nor a throw pillow out of place, Rapunzel suspected Elsa had been the last one to make the bed. Then again, Elsa wouldn't have spent much time in the house once her modeling career had taken off.

"Punz, honey!" Eugene shouted as he thundered up the stairs behind her. She turned to find him panting in the doorway, her cellphone out and buzzing in his hand.

Rapunzel's eyes widened at the incoming call from Japan.

"She's calling again..."

Anna.

"Well... too late to have second thoughts now, right?" she asked, clinging to some form of pep through her voice. She wondered if Anna would ever forgive her. She could have _asked_ for the money, but Rapunzel hadn't been certain Anna would agree to it. _Certainly not if she knew the whole story... or that the money's technically for Eugene._ The last uncertainty bothered her in particular since Eugene would be family one day.

Besides, Anna would have Elsa's money once she made it back to Arendelle. Rapunzel was not so heartless that she would touch that. It wasn't available yet, but hopefully Anna wouldn't have to wait long.

"Are you sure about this? We can call back and—"

"And what? We're running out of time, Eugene."

"Um..."

"What?"

"What do you want me to do about...?" He trailed off uncomfortably and held out the still buzzing mobile. He glanced at it as if he were holding onto a scorpion that might sting him if he took his eyes off of it.

"Just put it down somewhere and bring the boxes from downstairs so we can pack this stuff up."

Her boyfriend nodded and tossed the cellphone toward her before he darted back for the stairs. Rapunzel barely caught the thing. She turned the phone over and stared at the call location and number as it flashed across the screen.

* * *

It was amazing—no, it was infuriating how one hour of interviews could feel like an eternity because of one boorish girl with no alcohol tolerance. The rank stench of puke had followed Hans all the way from the airport to his hotel. Unfortunately thanks to city traffic, he'd not had enough time to change before meeting with reporters about the film he was there to shoot. Although the fool of a girl had puked on the jacket he left on the plane, he swore he could smell vomit on his cardigan. He'd had to endure the stench throughout the entire press release. It was only due to his prowess as a celebrity that he was able to get through without wrinkling his nose.

The minute he got to his room after the final interview, Hans stormed into his premium suite and practically tore his navy cardigan off. Left in just his white crew neck, he held the cardigan away from himself and sniffed once before he gagged and threw it across the room in disgust.

Just when he was about to sniff the remaining shirt he had on, there was a knock at the door. He looked at his watch. There were still a few hours left before he had to dine with the director. Or did the press somehow find out which room he was staying in? His face darkened at the possibility.

Jobs always ran so much more smoothly when his agent, Gene, was around. But Gene was back taking care of things in Arendelle.

Hans sighed and went to answer the door. In the worst-case scenario, he could always call hotel security and have his room switched.

He cracked the door open at first, prepared to slam it at the first sign of notebooks or cameras. Instead, he threw the door wide open, staring wide-eyed at his visitor.

"Kris!" he exclaimed.

The muscular blond smiled at Hans's surprise and clapped Hans on the shoulder as he entered the suite. "I heard you were filming here in Osaka. You could have said something!"

Hans chuckled and scratched at his head as he shut the door. "I figured you'd be busy with work." He led the way to the sitting area and pulled out a couple of Asahi beer cans from the microfridge as he gestured for Kristoff to take a seat in one of the black upholstery chairs facing a corner stone fireplace. To their left was a broad view of Osaka city at night.

Kristoff leaned his beer can forward to clink it against Hans's, chuckling before he took his first sip. "Not a whole lot of work to be done on Christmas Day."

"Is it Christmas Day?" Hans asked, genuinely surprised. It wasn't unusual for him to lose track of the holidays, a fact which was of consistent aggravation to his mother and grandmother. His father of course couldn't care less whether or not he came home for the holidays.

"Yes! A good time to visit an old friend," Kristoff added with another sip.

Hans nodded. "I'm sorry, I kept meaning to call. This movie has me pulling my hair out and we haven't even started filming."

"I thought you swore you'd never do movies?"

"This was all Gene's idea. He thinks I should branch out more internationally. This movie is kind of a stepping stone. The goal is Hollywood," Hans explained.

"You don't look too crazy about that," Kristoff noted.

Hans took a swig of his beer and set it on the little table in between them, sighing. "I'm not. I just want to keep singing. But apparently this could be good for my career, so..."

"Gotcha," Kristoff nodded. He wouldn't press the issue any further, and for that, Hans was grateful. "So tell me about the film!"

They talked for a while. Hans described his role in the movie. Then, he listened to Kristoff talk about business in Tokyo. Most hotels were receptive to stocking his company's ice machines. Kristoff had hoped to open partnerships with certain vending machine companies, but that was a work in progress. They reminisced about the good old days at university. They hadn't attended the same school, but had rented an apartment together. Hans had attended a music university, much to his father's disapproval, while Kristoff had attended a school for business. When they first started living together, about the only thing they had in common was drinking. But that changed after their first semesters. Kristoff had caught the flu and had already missed the allotted number of lectures on applied econometrics. Hans had casually asked what the class size was; it was big enough for no one to notice an unfamiliar face if he kept to himself. He had no courses before noon himself that semester, so every morning for a week he attended Kristoff's class and signed in for him. He took the best notes he could and passed them on to his roommate. To this day, Kristoff was deeply moved and bewildered by the gesture.

Then, there were the heated arguments over the phone whenever Hans's father used to call and try to convince him to drop out of music school. There were a few times when Hans came close to doing it. In truth, he'd hated to disappoint his father by not going into the medical field.

"To hell with him," Kristoff would always say. Eventually, Hans began to say it as well. By his third year, his father's phone calls had stopped.

"You ever hear from Eric?" Kristoff asked.

Hans shifted uncomfortably in his chair and cleared his throat. "No, we ah... don't really talk much these days." Where Hans had failed to make his father proud, Eric was the almost-perfect son. He'd graduated early from both high school and undergrad to enter medical school. There was no other word for it; he really was brilliant. And only twenty-seven! But still old enough that the family constantly nagged him about getting married. Hans heard it too every time he spoke to his mother or grandmother. In some ways, they were harder on him since he was nearly thirty.

Kristoff had only asked to be polite. Hans knew he wasn't a huge fan of Eric. The three had all been friends when Eric stayed with them for a while when finishing undergrad. Hans and Kristoff had kept the apartment for a couple years after graduation. Hans would do local performances while Kristoff had found a paid internship near school. Eric was great in those early days. In fact, he and Hans had never been closer. The problems started once he started medical school.

"I'll be returning to Arendelle in a couple days."

Thankfully, Kristoff's news pulled Hans from his retrospection.

"For how long?" he asked.

"For good. Well, except for when business takes me away again... but I finished all my projects here in Japan. It's time for me to go home."

"Ariel will be glad to see you," Hans said with a smile.

"Oh...? Are you two...?"

The redhead laughed at the unasked question. "No. Definitely not. She only has eyes for Eric, anyway."

Kristoff chuckled a little too neutrally. Ariel was still a tricky subject for the two of them.

A chiming ringtone went off then, and Kristoff pulled his cellphone out of his jacket pocket.

"I have to take this," he said apologetically after checking the number. Hans stood up with him to show him to the door.

"Let me know when you're back home!"

"Yes! We'll have to go for drinks," Kristoff suggested as Hans let him out. He chuckled, Hans knew, because neither one of them would ever 'go for drinks' quite the same way they had in their youth.

Hans watched his friend take his call as he departed down the hall toward the elevator. Kristoff's return to Arendelle was a welcome surprise.

* * *

Lights glowed and flashed all around Anna as she drifted through crowds on the streets. It was unlike any of the big cities she knew. For starters, she could only understand tiny fractions of the language, spoken or written. A surprising number of signs used western characters, but they were mainly the names of shops.

A sweet and savory scent caught her attention right as she was about to pass a shopping arcade. Just beside the entrance to the alleyway, a middle-aged woman stood at a little stand selling what looked like skewered dessert balls in soy sauce. They were too sweet-smelling to be fish. Anna wanted desperately to try one, but her curiosity led her deeper into the shopping arcade.

She found herself having to shut her gaping mouth as she turned her head this way and that to see all on either side of her. She walked past a ramen restaurant, a bar, a café, clothing displays, brightly colored signs and gaming arcades. The arcade was at some point intersected by another, but Anna kept on the path forward. She eventually came to another restaurant at the end which had food displays in its window. The smells rolling out from the open door made her salivate, as did the realistic presentations of fried cutlets with rice, shredded salads, hamburger patties next to potatoes and shrimp tempura. There were some noodle dishes as well, with sliced meet, green onions, tofu and more. She had never had any of it before, but she could easily imagine wolfing down any one or two of the dishes.

Unfortunately, she still had no Japanese yen.

Anna ignored the growling of her stomach and sulked away from the restaurant and out of the arcade. She wandered several streets until she came to a little park where packs of teenagers passed around her. They all giggled, talked and teased each other with hardly a glance at the sad foreign woman even though she felt like a sore thumb sticking out. She found herself a bench and sat down so that she could stretch her sore legs out after so much walking. She had a vague sense of the way back to the hotel, but she still hoped she wouldn't get lost.

She sighed again and pulled out her mobile phone, hoping that in at some point during her exploration, she had maybe connected to a shop's free wifi and would be able to receive a text message from Rapunzel. There were, however, no messages waiting on-screen for her.

"What am I going to do...?" she wondered aloud.

"What... am I... going to do?" a voice echoed her.

Anna glanced to her right as someone sat down in the space beside her. That someone was a very flushed businessman who reeked of booze.

"S-sorry," she stammered, inching to the left. "Is this seat taken? I can leave..."

"So-sorry!" The businessman cackled. "Is... this seat... taken? I can leave..."

Anna's brow furrowed. Maybe she should have been creeped out, but she just found it annoying to be mocked.

"Sumimasen. Nihongo o hanashimasen," she said, expecting that to put an end to things. But the businessman just repeated that too.

With a frustrated little growl, she stood up and stormed off, ignoring the ghoulish laugh of the man back on the bench as she speed-walked all the way back to the hotel. She almost made it without incident, except for when she tripped and scraped her knee stepping off a curb to cross the street to the Ritz Carlton. The people around her paused to consider her, but only one old woman murmured a, "Daijoubu desu ka?" before everyone went on about their business.

Sore and now angry, Anna trudged all the way up to her room. From there, she used the room phone to try and call her house this time. A confused gentleman answered. Figuring she must have made an error dialing out, Anna tried Rapunzel's phone again. Not so surprisingly, there was still no answer.

Anna was trembling by the time she heard the beep for voicemail. "Rapunzel. This is Anna. What. The. Hell. Is. Going on?! Why won't you pick up the phone? There was no reservation at the hotel. I was lucky to be able to get a room, and now I have to pay for it. You're going to owe me big time when I get home. You have a lot of explaining to do."

She slammed the receiver down and paced the perimeter of her bed while trying to think of what to do. It had been months since her last paycheck at her old job. She hadn't published anything substantial yet. So, even if she could find an international ATM, there just weren't enough funds for her to cover a four-night stay at a luxury hotel like this... at least not if she hoped to pay her monthly bills. She was still waiting to receive the money she inherited when Elsa passed away, so that was not an option either. Could she pay for her lodging by doing some laundry or cleaning?

Anna whimpered as she sat on the edge of the bed. Even if she checked out early, she didn't have the money for a cab to the airport. She stared wildly around the room.

"Think like a writer, Anna. This is a plot problem. What's the resolution?"

Then, her gaze fell upon a chair near the window, where she'd left a certain jacket to dry after doing her best to scrub out the vomit. She bit her fingernails as a crazy idea began to take shape.

It _was_ crazy. But she was desperate.

* * *

 **A/N:** Whoooo, soooo much backstory. Thank you for waiting/reading! I'll update again when I can. Oh, and to clarify about the ages in this story, because they don't exactly follow canon-

Kristoff – 29  
Hans - 29  
Elsa - 28 (deceased before 29th birthday)  
Anna - 26  
Rapunzel- 26  
Eugene - 26  
Ariel - 27  
Eric – 27


	4. Chapter 4

Anna couldn't remove any of the attached hangers from the closet—did people seriously steal hotel hangers?—so she folded the coal-colored shirt jacket as neatly as possible after washing it in the bathroom sink a good four extra times. When she'd gotten the smell of barf out to the best of her ability, she'd gone down to the front desk. She had of course known how low the chances were that they would just _tell_ her which room the celebrity was staying in. Yes, the clerk understood that Anna only wanted to return the jacket. No, the hotel couldn't under any circumstances give away such confidential information.

So, Anna was left with the next best option. She spent the next two hours working her way from ground level up and knocking at each door to see if the jacket's owner would answer. Sometimes no one answered. Either those rooms were vacant or the other guests did not want to be bothered. But most people went to the door out of curiosity, not one of them Hans, of course. It was a long and grueling process of elimination, but it was the only thing she could think of for the moment. As soon as Anna saw the person greeting her was not the haughty celebrity she was looking for, she'd mutter in embarrassment about forgetting which room a friend of hers was staying in and needing to return something she borrowed. A few people—mainly Japanese or guests of other foreign origins who could not understand her—either raised their eyebrow or stared in bewilderment to find a foreign girl at the door. But most took her brief intrusion fairly well, which was a relief to Anna. She'd thought someone would have called security on her before she cleared the first floor. But she managed to reach the luxury suites on the upper levels, where she decided she probably should have started her search in the first place. The halls of the lower levels were gorgeous enough, but the floors with luxury suites had mirrors along the walls, more intricate chandelier lighting and marble floors with vibrant red carpeting for guests to tread on. The wooden doors were lined by beautifully carved frames that Anna would have stopped to study more closely if she weren't on a mission.

Her task itself was not so tiring; it was the anticipation when she heard footsteps approach to answer each time after she knocked. The guests on the luxury levels of the hotel were more visibly annoyed by her knocking. Some of the suites had multiple doors; she discovered this the hard way when she angered one elderly gentleman by knocking on all three of his. From then on, she was extra careful to check the suite numbers.

She contemplated taking a break as she knocked at suite 1214 at the end of the hall. There was no answer at first, so she tried again. A few seconds later, she heard approaching footsteps from within. The door opened, and Anna found herself looking up at a familiar scowl. Hans's eyes widened when they laid on her, but he was soon scowling again.

"You," was all he said.

"Hi! I... just came to return this... I washed it several times," she explained as she held out the abominable jacket. Hans's smile was strained as he quickly grabbed it from her.

"Oh! Thanks!" He moved to shut the door in her face, but Anna was too quick for him. She shoved both hands against his door.

"W-wait! Also, may I come in? I have something to discuss with you."

"Oh? You can tell me right here."

"It's a bit of a long story..."

"Make it quick, then."

"I-I need to... borrow some money..."

Hans's mouth turned up in disgust. "You _what_?"

"Don't look at me like that! I don't have any money to pay for this hotel or to get to the airport... I've been trying to get ahold of my friends back in Arendelle, but no one's answering. I don't know what will happen to me if I can't get home!"

He gave a little clap of his hands before moving to close his door again. This time, Anna shoved her foot in the door.

"Hey!" he snarled, pulling the door back only an inch. "Stop that! Get your foot out!"

"I'm serious! I need help!"

"So, go to the police!"

He nudged her foot back out into the hall with his own and managed to slam the door shut that time.

The instant rejection rattled Anna, but she was not ready to give up. She balled her fist and knocked on the door again. Hans must not have walked far off, for he opened it quickly, fuming.

"Please," she said. "I swear I'll pay you back!"

"Forget it!" Hans hissed, slamming the door shut once again. Desperate, Anna was just about to knock a third time when the door reeled open. "And stop knocking on this door!" Again, he slammed the door shut.

Anna blinked rapidly, trying to collect herself. She glanced off to the left and moved toward the middle door to Hans's suite. She forced herself to knock gently even though she wanted to bang on the door to annoy him.

A moment later, the door opened. Hans was pale with fury when he saw it was her again. He opened his mouth to tell her off, but she cut him off in time.

"Yes, yes, I get it. If you're not going to help me, can you at least give me Kristoff's number?"

She was satisfied by the puzzlement that distorted his perfect features.

"You know Kris?"

Anna bit her lower lip. She hadn't thought through it that far. She'd only blurted out Kristoff's name because she panicked. With a clearing of her throat, she looked down awkwardly as if it were a difficult subject for her.

"Yes! ...and he wouldn't be happy with you if he saw you treating me like this," she retorted, squaring her shoulders somewhat.

"What? What are you to him?"

Anna gulped. Oh boy. But this was progress, right?

"W-we... have a history..."

"Hmm..."

She squirmed under his piercing gaze. An awkward couple of seconds passed before Hans stepped aside. "Come in, then."

She wasn't sure whether she was more relieved or terrified, but she stepped over the threshold and heard him close the door behind her. She followed him into the sitting room, where they sat and eyed one another. Anna kept her twitching in check, but she felt as if she was about to be cross-examined.

"What's your history then?"

"That's... it's kind of long, sad story. I don't want to bore you..."

"I won't be bored," Hans pressed.

Anna groaned inwardly. "Let's just say that if things had worked out differently, Kris," she used the same name Hans had used for Kristoff, "and I might be engaged right now."

She thought for sure she'd be called out when she said that, but Hans just leaned forward on the edge of his seat.

"He never told me..." Hans murmured to himself.

Anna felt it would be safer for her to say nothing.

"Well, of course he wouldn't," the singer added, musing. Then he blinked at her, as if just remembering she was in the room. "Shall I call him?"

"No!" Anna shook her head a little too emphatically. She cleared her throat and sat back, trying to remain composed. "What I mean is... we parted on somewhat awkward terms. It would just be painful for both of us..."

She was one more lie away from hyperventilating. Luckily, Hans did not push the issue.

"I understand," he said.

"You...do?" She coughed. "Thank you..."

Hans jumped up and walked off out of sight into the bedroom. Anna tried to lean over in her seat to see what he was doing. Would he disregard her wishes and call up Kristoff anyway? God, she hoped not. But Hans came back a moment later with some Japanese yen at hand. Anna breathed out in relief as she shakily accepted his offering. She counted off the numbers in her head; it was more than enough to cover the hotel, transportation to the airport and the flight home. She sniffed back the urge to cry tears of relief and instead picked up a memo pad and pen from the coffee table. She quickly scratched down her cellphone number and held it up for the singer. He raised his eyebrow as he took the pad from her.

"I still plan to pay you back. Just give me a call when you're back in Arendelle and I'll get you your money back as soon as I can."

Hans shrugged and set the memo pad back down, seemingly indifferent although Anna suspected he _would_ give her a call to collect his money once they were both back home. He took a seat once again, glancing at her curiously.

"Don't you want to patch things up with Kris?"

Anna paled a little. "I don't think it's possible at this point." She grew nervous when Hans's face grew impatient. Why did he care so much about his friend's fake failed relationship? "I'd rather remember all the happy memories. Besides, I'm sure he's moved on." She drew from all the romantic stories she'd read and written herself. Boy meets girl. Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. Tragedy ensues. They're unfortunately separated. It probably happened all the time, right?

"All right then..."

"Ahem... " she rose up from her seat and hastily stepped backward towards the exit. "Well, you have my number. I'll leave you be now. Thank you... really, thank you."

"Hey, I'm just doing what Kristoff probably would have wanted."

Anna gave a curt nod. "Thanks, anyway."

Hans waved a farewell from his seat, signaling that she could let herself out. Anna held her breath as she turned toward the door. She did not let it out until his door closed behind her and she was halfway down the hall.

* * *

A few days later, Anna exited into the Arendelle Airport terminal and pulled out her phone to give Rapunzel another call. She had already lit into Rapunzel and Eugene in her previous messages. This time, she found herself speechless. She hung up without leaving another scathing voicemail and found herself worrying for the first time. What if something had happened to the couple while she was gone...?

More anxious than ever to get home now, Anna hailed a cab outside and tried not to let her imagination run too wild on the ride home. Arendelle cab drivers kept more to themselves out of wanting to respect their customers' space and privacy. But this meant she was left with her thoughts for the forty-minute drive. Could something have happened to the house? Were Rapunzel and Eugene involved in some accident and was that why they hadn't answered her numerous calls? Scenario after scenario played out in her head, torturing her. By the time the taxi entered the valley and rolled up to the front of her house, Anna was actually surprised to find the residence still standing.

The driver cleared his throat to prompt Anna to pay him. Flustered, she dug through the remaining cash exchanged from what Hans had given her and handed over the fare, glad for once to know exactly how much money to give. After a quiet exchange of thank yous, Anna lugged her bag out of the passenger seat and opened the gate in the front picket fence. She dug in her purse for her house key and rushed to let herself in, eager to just plop down on her bed and take a nap before she headed over to Rapunzel's apartment to check up on her cousin.

She should have noticed the photos were missing from the foyer walls, or even that the decorative stand and vase in the far right corner were absent. But she was so winded from her "adventure" abroad that she didn't notice anything was amiss until she walked into the empty living room.

Anna gasped. Her eyes darted first left and then swept in a rightward gaze across the bare floor; no couch, no television, no coffee table, no area rug, no bookshelves, no desk up against the wall, no paintings or photographs, nothing. She let out a strangled little cry of shock and bolted for the kitchen. The refrigerator and dishwasher were left in place, but her blender, toaster and microwave were absent. Her blood rushed to her hands as she yanked open drawers and cabinets. Sure enough, silverware, dishes, glasses and teacups were missing too. The baking sheets she kept in the broiler beneath the oven were gone. Her salt and pepper shakers were gone along with all the spatulas, ladles, whisks and prongs. Not one bag of chips was left in the snack cabinet.

Bile threatened to rise up with a sudden wave of nausea as she came to the last drawer at the corner of the kitchen. This drawer was empty save for a single envelope with her name on it. She picked it up and took as much time as possible pulling out the letter within. She knew the explanation would be within, and a large part of her didn't want to know.

She almost opened it. But somehow, she managed to stuff the letter back in its envelope and toss the dreaded thing back into the drawer.

In a panic, she ran throughout the rest of the house, checking room after room on both levels. The bedrooms were empty, including _hers._ The bathrooms were empty. Even the closets were emptied!

She huffed as she made her way back down to the kitchen, looking around wildly. Then, she dug out her phone and did a quick search for the bank Eugene worked at. When she found the number and address, she called them up.

"Fort Wenworth Bank, this is Amelia. How can I help you?"

Anna hesitated, pacing back and forth in her kitchen. She didn't want her voice to shake when she spoke to this stranger over the phone.

"Hello?" Amelia said.

"H-hello. My name is Anna Frost. I'm looking for Eugene Fitzherbert. Could you please transfer me?"

"Eugene? Um... could you hold for one moment please?"

Relief washed through her. "Yes, of course."

There was a click and she found herself on hold with an automated spiel about the many perks of banking with Fort Wenworth. She stopped her pacing and leaned over the island counter, fiddling with the sink faucet as she waited. A few seconds later, Amelia was back on the line.

"Thanks for waiting. I'm sorry, but Eugene doesn't work here anymore."

Anna stood up straight so quickly, she nearly dropped her cellphone.

"What?!"

"I thought he might be on vacation, so I had to check, but apparently he resigned a few weeks ago... I can't give any more information, I'm afraid."

Anna let out a long, agonized sigh.

"I'm sorry!" Amelia said, sounding genuinely sympathetic. "Is there... anything else I can help you with?"

"N... on second thought... I have an account with you... if I give you my account number and information, could you let me know my balance please...?"

"Oh, of course, miss! Happy to help. Your name and account number please?"

Anna gave Amelia the requested information and waited while the clerk looked up her account. After another few excruciating seconds, Amelia let out a little gasp that made Anna raise her eyebrows.

"Um... it looks like you cleared out the account. The balance is zero."

Anna swallowed. There was only one other person who could have had access to her account. She'd given Rapunzel power of attorney after Elsa's passing. At the time, it'd been a great help to have someone to deal with lawyers, banks and funeral arrangements when she was just too broken to do it herself.

"Miss?" Amelia's voice came from the other line.

"Th-thank you, that's all I needed..." she said, somewhat in a daze.

"Okay! Thank you so much for calling today, Anna! Have a great rest of your day!"

"You too..."

Anna held the phone in place for half a minute after the conversation ended, just staring into space. When her fingers started aching, she realized how tightly she was clutching onto her mobile. She set it down on the countertop and thought of all the couple's usual haunts around Arendelle. She could run out and try to track them down.

Her stomach growled. She put her hand over it and walked over to the fridge, surprised to find that they'd left her some cheese, fruit and vegetables.

"How nice of them not to let me starve," she muttered as she pulled out a peach. She bit into it, only somewhat comforted by the sweet juice that filled her mouth as she chewed on the fruit. Her gaze wandered and settled upon that corner drawer with the letter to her. She wiped her wrist across her mouth as she stalked up to the drawer, confronting it like some archenemy before she pulled it open and took out the envelope. With impressive balancing of the fruit, she pulled out the letter again.

She still didn't really want to know. But she needed to know. Why would Rapunzel do this to her?

And Eugene...! Anna had never been anything but kind to him!

All right, so his presumptuous, laid-back nature grated on her nerves somewhat after Elsa's passing, but that was only because he seemed obliviously, consistently insensitive.

Once again, Anna found her fingers trembling as she read through the letter:

 _Dear Anna,_

 _Please don't hate us. We know you'll be angry. One day, we'll explain everything. We hope you can forgive us then._

 _Love,_

 _Rapunzel_

That was it. Anna tossed the letter and envelope both on the counter and scoffed. That was it? No explanation, no real apology, just a plea for her not to hate them.

She glared down at the peach in her hands as her fingers dug into it, squeezing the fruit juice out to run over her hand in cool, messy rivulets. She took a deep breath and mentally counted to ten.

Then, she screamed.

"Where's all my stuff?!"

* * *

 **A/N:** So I didn't get two chapters out this month like I'd hoped to. Sticking to a regular writing schedule at this point is going to be pretty difficult. But the next chapter is already outlined and should come out in March. Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

With filming in Osaka all wrapped up, Hans was home in Arendelle days later. On the eve of his return, he considered calling up Ariel to tell her about Kris returning from Japan. Better for her to hear it from him than to bump into Kris on the street. Not that there was open animosity between the two of them. In fact, Ariel hadn't even seemed to notice when Kris gradually had less time to spend with her. It was odd how Hans had become the mutual friend between them, considering the history between the three of them. But if there was anything he'd learned about his friend, it was that there was little that could shake their friendship; neither time nor distance, and certainly not a woman.

In the end, he decided to give it a couple of days and just see her in person.

He turned off the ignition of his white convertible and stepped out, removing his sunglasses in the shade of the building before him. He tossed the dark specs onto the console before he shut and locked his vehicle. Then, he took a deep breath and gazed at the silver building ahead. It wasn't actually silver. It just looked that way, its walls comprised of almost all windows. The recording rooms inside the studio were enclosed by solid wall, but the rest of the building felt bright and airy, which was great for keeping singers and musicians in good moods.

Hans entered the automatic doors and stopped at the reception desk to ask which room Miss Waters was in. Then, he took the stairs up to the second level, removing his brown double breasted pea coat as he stepped down the hall. Its white fleece collar was too warm with his black turtleneck beneath.

There were four rooms at Beats Studios in Arendelle. Ariel or her producer had chosen the one with the stone walls and skylight in the northeast corner of the second floor. It had the best ambience out of all the rooms in the building.

He gave a soft knock at the control room door and was let in by the producer's assistant. Inside was Sebastian—Ariel's record producer—and a single sound engineer Hans had worked with himself at the studio. Hans couldn't remember the boy's name.

"… _take it all back the night everything I said was an attack. But I can't make myself forget…"_

Sebastian greeted him with a single wave which Hans returned. He knew Sebastian was not one to get distracted from work. They'd worked together a few times before Gene connected him with a bigger producer.

" _...or do a single thing about my regret_."

Goosebumps spread up Hans's arms as Ariel's ethereal voice lilted in from the live room. He eyed her through the window. Her singing bewitched him as much as the first time he'd heard her.

"… _now the funny thing's I got what I wanted…_ "

He knew all her songs by heart as he listened to them often. This one was new.

"… _kept my pride. But the cost, how did I not realize that I would lose so much…_ "

For some reason, these lyrics touched a wound within him. He stared at his ex-girlfriend and watched her with her eyes closed, hands over her chest and singing her heart out as if it were broken. The sound engineer glanced back at Hans and handed him a headset so he could listen in with the accompanying music. Hans settled the headset over his ears and smiled at the accompaniment. Ariel's previous album had merely dipped into electronica, but this new track ventured a bit more of it. She'd started out as more of a folk song artist, but he was happy to see her spreading her wings... even if his favorite memories of her singing were acoustics in his old apartment.

" _Your arms, your voice, your heart… all I have left is to be under the same sky. Your sky…"_

Kris had moved on, so why couldn't he? Hans thought back to the odd strawberry blonde who had burdened him on his trip to Osaka. She was a far cry from Ariel's level. But maybe Kris's standards had lowered. Why had his friend never mentioned the woman? Then again, maybe he was embarrassed or just hadn't been all that serious about Anna? Casual relationships did not seem like Kris though. But they'd had to have broken up for a reason.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Hans mentally swatted away the thoughts that were as intrusive and irritating as the odd woman. With luck, he'd never have to think of her again once she returned his loan.

* * *

"Hans!" The redheaded siren jumped and threw her arms around him as soon as she entered the control room. He chuckled and returned her embrace, no longer surprised by the sting he felt from her platonic affection. "You jerk! You didn't tell me you left the country!"

"Heh, sorry… the filming and press conference schedules were kind of hectic. I meant to call you when I was there."

"Hmph!" She pulled away, glaring up at him adorably. Everyone else in the room seemed to vanish. "See if I let you know the next time I go abroad!"

Hans smirked with a raise of his eyebrow. "Oh? Booked your first international tour, did we?"

She scowled toward Sebastian. "Not yet. He's working on it."

"…'ey, girl, watch the tone! I bust my butt off for you," Sebastian objected, bristling in the corner. Ariel giggled and gave her producer a playful push back in his seat.

"I know, I know. I just want to be world-famous like this guy!"

Hans blushed. "Guess you should have accepted that album offer when you had the chance," he teased. Before Ariel had started to garner some fame, Hans had suggested they make an album together. She'd turned down that offer though. She'd said something about not wanting to use him to make a name for herself. But there was surely more to it than that.

"Oh, you're never going to let that go, are you?"

No, he wasn't.

"Give me a ride home?" she asked, batting her eyes as if she thought she had to. He chuckled as she stuck out her tongue and excused herself to gather her things.

As they walked out together, Hans broke the news about Kris. He couldn't say why he felt he had to be careful. If anything, Ariel seemed ecstatic.

"I haven't seen him in forever! How is he?"

"Great. Really, really great. Japan worked out well for him. But I think he's glad to be coming home."

Like a true gentleman, he opened the front passenger door for her the way he did the entire time they'd dated. Ariel plopped down comfortably and turned the radio on as soon as he started up the car.

"How long was he over there? Feels like ages!"

"A few years, at least. You haven't talked to him at all?"

Ariel shrugged. "We exchanged emails here and there, but he's always so busy! I don't think he even wrote me back the last time! I'll give him hell when I see him."

Hans snorted, knowing full well Kris wouldn't hear the end of it. It would be nice for the three of them to be together again. Maybe enough time had finally passed that things wouldn't be so awkward.

Well, as long as no one brought up Eric.

"I'm still mad you didn't tell me you were going to Japan! I'd have asked for a souvenir!"

Hans turned onto her street, giving her a pointed glance as soon as it was safe to take his eyes off the road. "What, you think I wouldn't bring something back for you?"

Ariel squealed in a way that could only be delightful because it was her. "You did?! What?"

He pulled up to her apartment building and turned toward her with a smug grin. "How about you find out at dinner with me tomorrow?"

She smiled, about to answer when her cellphone rang. Her eyes widened when she saw the caller and fumbled to answer it quickly.

"Kris! We were _just_ talking about you! Aha!"

Hans's ears perked up, a little taken aback that Kris called Ariel before calling him.

"Yes, Hans. Who else?" Ariel snorted, glancing over at Hans with a roll of her eyes as if Kris had asked the world's stupidest question. "Right now? He's dropping me off. Hey, let's all do dinner tomorrow?"

That'd be nice—dinner with the two of them. Even if he'd hoped to spend some time alone with Ariel. But they'd had plenty of lunch and dinner dates during the time Kris was away. It would be great to hang out as a trio again.

"You should both bring your girlfriends!" Ariel suggested with a devious little laugh.

Hans half-smiled and wondered if Kris felt the same irritation at her remark. There was a pause as Kris responded on the other end. Ariel laughed at whatever he'd said.

"Yeah, yeah. It's a date tomorrow, then. I'll text a time and place later. Bye!"

She hung up and squealed that same Ariel-squeal again, leaning over to quickly hug Hans before getting out. He waved her off, smiling up until she turned her back toward him.

A girlfriend, huh?

* * *

Anna hadn't spent so long sitting on the floor since the temper tantrums she used to throw when she was eight. Normally those occasions were from when her parents were too busy to drive her to a friend's house. She'd wail about how unfair it was and how Elsa got to do whatever she pleased. She learned pretty quickly that these demonstrations wouldn't work.

Elsa used to take pity on her and offer to play with her. Soon Anna would forget all about not being chauffeured to her friends. Elsa was her best friend, after all.

She still was.

"What would she do…?" she thought aloud, hugging her knees as she groaned at the lingering headache that had been haunting her from the moment she read the note.

But if their places were reversed… if Anna were the one to have died in a car accident, Elsa wouldn't have to worry about all of this. Elsa was the calm, responsible one. Anna thought she'd had her act together. But Elsa's death had proved otherwise; she was a mess.

"What would Elsa do?" she repeated, lightly tapping her knuckles against her aching head.

Call the lawyer! Maybe see about getting the inheritance money sooner, given the situation? Her cellphone rang as she reached for it, startling her. She picked it up and arched her brow at the unknown number.

"Maybe it's those jerks."

She glowered as she answered the call and heard a haughty voice that was vaguely familiar, though she could not quite place it.

"You're in Arendelle, right?" the man asked.

"Yes. Huh?" She smacked herself for answering automatically.

"Corner of Anders and 12th. Vermillion Café, 2nd floor. Meet me in 30 minutes."

"What?" The phone clicked. "HELLO?"

Bewildered, Anna sat there wondering who the hell that was. Her stomach suddenly felt heavy. Could this have something to do with Rapunzel and Eugene missing, or her house being emptied?

She jumped up and figured she might get a free meal at the very least. What else was she going to do?

* * *

 **A/N:** Thanks for reading! :)


	6. Chapter 6

Dusk had crept over the sky by the time Anna entered the café on the street corner. The establishment walls and modern seating were all the same hideous, brilliant shade of red. The design was meant more to be unique than to relax.

She scanned the first floor before remembering she didn't know who had called her out. Obviously the mysterious caller knew her—they'd known that she had left Arendelle, that she was back now. She frowned and took a retro staircase next to the door up to the second level. The moment she reached the top step, she heard her name. She turned toward the source of the voice, a small table for two at a corner window.

"You…" she said, blinking as she approached Hans Westergaard at his table. He beckoned her over impatiently, his other arm resting on the table's surface.

"Sit."

He pushed the empty chair out with his foot. Its scrape against the floor made Anna wince, but she took a seat, staring at the singer.

"I have questions for you," he explained.

Murmurs a few tables over drew her ear. Anna twisted around in her seat and saw other customers staring. No… they were staring at Hans, not her. It had been so long since she'd gone downtown because people recognized her as the sister of the late Elsa Frost. Thankfully, all eyes were on the singer right now.

"Wait, what?" She raised her eyebrow. What could he possibly want to ask her?

Oh. Did he want his money already? Her mouth went dry.

Of course, her anxiety went unnoticed. He took a graceful sip of the black coffee in front of him and cleared his throat as if considering how to broach a delicate subject. Anna suspected this hesitance was just for show.

"You said… if things had turned out differently, you and Kris might have gotten engaged."

Anna stared blankly. Again, the singer was fixated on her made-up relationship with Kristoff Bjornsson. Bjorken. Bjornberg?

Hans appeared to be waiting for her to respond.

"I did…say that…"

It wasn't a total lie. Had she and Kristoff ever been in an actual relationship, one day they _might_ have gotten engaged.

"Well, what happened?"

Anna let out a choked laugh.

"What? Why?"

The singer grew solemn. "Kris is my dearest friend. I want to know."

"Ah…" She thought back to those cliché romances. The story had to be plausible. She really didn't expect to have to keep it up for so long. "Our parents didn't approve." That would do it. But when Hans groaned, she worried he didn't buy it.

"What is this, the 19th century?" he said. "Parents…"

Anna shrugged. He wasn't looking at her. It wasn't her explanation he took issue with; he gazed into space, his thoughts miles—perhaps years—away.

"Do you have my money?"

Anna gulped. So, he did expect it back already.

"I don't have it right this second…"

The singer sighed and watched the steam roll off of his beverage, but that didn't fool Anna. There was disdain in his eyes now. He had hoped for… what, she didn't know. Her answer about Kristoff had disappointed him somehow.

"It was a loan, not a donation," he said coolly.

"Of course!" Her eyes widened. "I have every intention of paying you back. You just… you don't know what I've been through since I got home! I've lost everything. Everything! Otherwise I'd give you the money right now if I could!" He became a blur of auburn, brown and black as she started to tear up, much to her bewilderment. She strained her eyes to keep from blinking.

 _Don't let the tears fall. Do not cry in front of this snob._

But the stress was too much. She sniffled once as two tears rolled down her cheeks. All she wanted was to rub her eyes dry, but that would make her look pathetic. No matter what her circumstances, he would only view them as an excuse.

"Get up," she heard as he stood.

Now she _did_ wipe her eyes dry to look up at him. But Hans avoided eye contact, visibly unnerved by her crying. He moved past her and for a moment, she thought he would forget about the loan.

"Get up and come with me."

She turned around, uncertain. He'd stopped at the odd staircase to wait for her.

"What…?" She stood up shakily, still conscious of all the eyes on them as she followed him down the stairs and out to the street.

They turned left at the corner and ventured into the heart of Arendelle's shopping district on 12th street. He walked ahead of her at a brisk pace. She hung back behind him, but kept her eye on his back so she wouldn't lose him. She didn't want passersby to stare at the woman accompanying Hans Westergaard once people started to recognize him. Across the street, a massive department store took up half the floors of an eighty-plus story building owned by Fort Wenworth Holdings. The rest of the building must have been businesses and restaurants.

A few minutes into following Hans, Anna thought of calling out to ask where they were going and, more importantly, why he wanted her to tag along. But the singer suddenly stopped and turned to a shop on his right, eyeing the faceless mannequins in the window display. Anna stopped a foot away from him and looked into the window.

Her face scrunched up in confusion. SEASONS was a well-known women's luxury clothing boutique. It was a small business that only the wealthy could afford. Anna only knew about it because Elsa had sometimes shopped there and dragged Anna along.

They'd bicker about Elsa paying for everything. Elsa always wanted Anna to dress more elegantly for work while Anna said it was a waste to spend so much money on dressing up for a job.

"This is your career we're talking about!" Elsa had said once.

"No. _You_ have a career. I just have a job."

In the end, she'd always relent and allow her older sister to at least buy her one blouse or skirt. It was embarrassing to wear brand .name stuff into the office. Her co-workers never failed to ask if the clothing was a gift from her famous sister.

"Why are we here…?" she asked now, unsure how much time she'd spent thinking of the past.

He only said, "Come on," as he opened the door for her. She gave him a nervous glance before entering the shop. It seemed that his mood was constantly fluctuating. What were they doing at a luxury clothing store? She'd certainly made it clear she had no money.

Hans kept up the mystery, guiding Anna from rack to rack in silence. He paused to lift one hanger up toward her. She blushed at the scrutiny as his green eyes darted back and forth between her and a cream and turquoise chiffon draped mid-length dress with thin shoulder straps. After a pause, he shook his head and held it out to a store clerk Anna hadn't even heard creep up behind them. Next, he picked up a wine colored fit and flare with a top layer of black lace over the dress skirt. He barely held it up next to Anna before he shook his head and moved on. This went on for what felt like an hour to Anna. The navy wrap-style cocktail dress with the long sleeves was no good. He didn't like the mauve and pleated fit flare dress either. He exhaled in dissatisfaction. Anna almost felt guilty that she wasn't measuring up to any of the shop's items, but then she remembered she didn't ask for this little shopping trip.

"Ah!" Hans exclaimed softly, wildly gesturing for her to come with him to the "New" items on display along the wall. Anna shook her head at the lofty prices.

Hans snapped his fingers, summoning the shop clerk and consulting with her in a low voice as he pointed up at an olive green skater dress with lace long sleeves. Finally he turned to Anna to ask for her dress size.

"Wait, what?"

"Don't be obtuse. What size are you?"

"Th…thirty-eight…"

Hans signaled to the clerk to bring the appropriate size for Anna. It had been months since she last wore a dress. Hopefully she was the same size.

"I'm conf—" she started to say when Hans swept around her to the nearest display of shoes.

"Shoe size?"

"Also thirty-eight…"

She heard a pause. Then, suddenly he was in front of her again with a pair of tan peep toe pumps. He allowed her a single glance before he handed the shoes off to the shop clerk who returned with a size thirty-eight dress. Anna really didn't want to check the price for the shoes, but her curiosity got the best of her.

"Okay, enough is enough—"

Again, she found herself talking to the air as Hans had run off to the jewelry counter. Anna groaned and followed. There was no way she could afford any of this. What did he think he was playing at?

Whatever game it was, Hans wasn't done. Now he was pointing at an artisan crafted sterling silver and peridot cuff bracelet in the display case. He glanced over at Anna, squinting in thought before he pointed at a second bracelet, a braided sterling. A second shop clerk nodded and carefully removed the bracelets from the case. Hans almost turned away, but he stopped himself. He sidled farther down the display case to pore over the earring selection.

Anna stared helplessly toward the check-out counter where the clerks rounded up and bagged the dress, pumps, bracelets and a pair of peridot drop earrings. Her head throbbed upon hearing the total. It got even worse when Hans pulled out his wallet and had everything charged to his card. She tried to find her voice to object to it, but her curiosity won out. Hans turned to her and placed the bagged purchases in her hands.

She stood there dumbly, gaping at the bag in confusion. She thought she heard Hans give the clerks his thanks as he touched Anna's back and gently guided her to the exit. She mumbled her own thanks, though it was unclear even to her whether she was directing it to the shop workers or Hans himself.

Neon lights and traffic glowed outside where the temperature had dropped for the evening. Anna studied the man who had demanded his money back just moments ago. Then she looked down at the bag from SEASONS. It just didn't make sense.

"What's all this for? Now I'll just owe you more money." The second statement was an afterthought she'd agonize over later. For now, she needed an answer.

Hans shrugged. "I want to help you."

Something squeezed at Anna's heart amidst her growing confusion. "How?"

He smiled and patted her on the shoulder. He probably wasn't trying to be patronizing, but did she really want to be his little charity case?

"Go home and get some rest. I'll text you tomorrow."

Now her head spun. He would text her tomorrow? The casual way he said it made it sound like they were… friends or… something. In fact, if not for the awkward conversation and shopping, their meeting had been a little bit like a…

 _No, Anna. This was not a date._

But as she watched him nod and turn to go his separate way, she wondered. It was completely unfeasible that the singer had any romantic interest in her. They'd just met… and more than once she'd been a total inconvenience to him. He'd just evidently taken pity on her. That was it.

Still, she felt like she was floating her entire walk home.

* * *

It gave Anna a start to wake up in her empty bedroom. She sat up and stretched, her hair in the usual catastrophe it got itself into when she slept. Out of habit, she looked for the clock where her nightstand used to be.

 _Oh. Right…_

She rubbed the grogginess from her eyes as she picked up her cellphone to check the time. Eight o'clock? Not bad. She felt oddly refreshed although sore after sleeping on the floor. A shower would help.

Anna frowned as it occurred to her she didn't have any towels. With a sigh, she crawled over to her suitcase by the wall to pick out a couple of shirts to dry off with. It was better than nothing, she told herself. With that, she grabbed her travel shampoo, conditioner and soap and headed for the bathroom.

The hall outside her door seemed naked without all its former photographs and decorations. Anna wasn't sure which was the stranger here, herself or the house. Home hadn't felt like home ever since Elsa started spending so much time away for work. But the emptiness now was a new extreme.

At least the water and electricity were still running—as well they should be since she paid her utility bills at the start of the month.

The new year was in just another couple of days though. What would she do then?

Anna let the water warm up before she hopped into the shower. She turned her back toward the falling water, breathing out all her stress as her muscles started to relax.

When she was done, she turned the water off and wrung her hair out.

 _Thunk_.

She stood up straight, startled. What was that?

 _Thunk, thunk._ The sound was followed by voices, unless she imagined them. They were too distant to make out what they were saying.

"…the master bedroom!" someone shouted.

Anna held back a cry. The master suite was in its own hall and had access from a smaller staircase from the living room. The problem was that the bathroom she was using—the second bathroom—faced that hall. She hadn't brought any clothes for changing into the bathroom with her. Since she'd brought the two shirts for towels, it had slipped her mind.

But being naked in front of strangers was a secondary concern. First of all, who was that shouting downstairs?! She let out an indignant little snarl and hopped out of the shower, quickly patting herself as dry as she could get with the two shirts. Her hair was soaked, but she'd blow it dry later.

With the two damp shirts in tow, Anna crept out into the hall. She dashed to the left to get to her room.

"…you hear that?" a man asked.

"Yeah, hardwood floors. Just the house settling," another answered.

"I dunno, man. I heard the former residents all died."

"Snap out of it. We've gotta get all this furniture in by noon or we won't make our one o'clock."

Anna stood very still, her hand on her bedroom door handle. She'd already cracked the door open but had remained frozen out in the hall to listen to the two men speak.

" 'ey, where's Mick? I can't get this mattress up those stairs by myself!" a third man complained, sounding frazzled.

Anna felt her hopes rise. Perhaps it was _her_ furniture they were moving back into the house? But what was that they'd said about former residents?

"He's out by the truck! Here, I'll help ya."

They were coming up. Who the hell were they?!

She was careful not to slam her door as she darted back into her room and locked the door behind her. With very strict instructions to herself _not_ to panic, she dropped to the floor and rummaged through her suitcase for clean clothes. She was down to her last clean set of clothes. With no washer and dryer, she'd have to get to a laundromat at some point. When it came down to it though, she'd have to choose between clean clothing and a meal.

Angry with the turn her thoughts had taken, Anna yanked a dark pair of jeggings up her thighs and threw on her magenta cardigan over a blank tank top before stomping back out into the hall.

"Hey!" she yelled down at the two movers lifting the massive mattress at the bottom of the stairs. They both yelped in surprise and gawked up at her.

"Oh, great. A squatter!" the man with the frazzled voice pointed at her.

"I am _not_ a squatter. This is my home!" she snapped.

A third mover came up to join his companions, all three of them gaping up at her before they started chuckling amongst one another. Anna stormed down the stairs, fuming.

"Riiight… and uh.. how long have you been living here?"

"All my life. Now get this stuff out of my house!"

"Sorry, sweetheart. No can do. This house is sold, and we've been hired to get the owner's stuff in here. Now if you leave quietly, no one needs to know you were ever here…"

"S-sold?! There must be some misunderstanding. I didn't sell the house," she protested. Their faces suggested they believed that about as much as they believed in Father Christmas.

" 'ey, Mick?! Get in here! Bring the schedule!" Frazzle-voice yelled with his head turned back toward the front door. Some seconds later, a younger man walked in with a clipboard ready. He looked at the rest of them in question when he noticed Anna blocking the stairs.

"Give me that." One of the others snagged the clipboard and lifted it for Anna to see. There was a spreadsheet attached, the top stamped with 'Arendelle Movers'. It was a schedule, complete with addresses, times, directions

She quickly scanned the column of addresses at the left; sure enough, 2 Crocus Boulevard was near the top.

"There must be a mistake…" she murmured.

The movers did not appear to be listening. In fact, the two had gone back to trying to drag the large mattress up the stairs.

"Are you listening to me?! I said there's been some mistake!" she snapped.

The two on the stairs hesitated while the third gently retrieved his clipboard from her hands. The three of them laughed, shaking their heads.

"Yeah. Maybe you're in the wrong house!" They laughed even harder.

This was too much. The trip gone awry, her house stripped of all her possessions and now sold off without her knowledge?

"Stop!" she yelled. Her rage had reached its limit. No more playing the helpless mourner. The movers kept on task, ignoring her entirely. "Stop, or I'll call the police!" This time, her voice hit the ceiling.

But they didn't even pause. Her threat to go to the authorities was another joke to them, which they laughed about all the way up to the second level.

Anna balled her fists. That's it. She would go to the police.

* * *

Anna felt like a pauper as she rolled her suitcase up the sidewalk to the police station. Then she realized she _was_ one—the suitcase contained everything she still owned. The worst of it was that even though everything that had happened was out of her control, she felt she could have done something to prevent it.

She swallowed as she stopped a few feet short of the entrance. Having never made a report to the police before, she didn't know what to expect. What if they didn't believe her, like the movers?

Her phone chimed. She pulled it out and found a text message from an unknown number. The restaurant name, address and time in the message puzzled her, but the accompanying, "Wear the dress!" reminded her that the unknown number was Hans.

Well, this was weird. She bit her lower lip, confused by the invitation to dinner. Hans had said he would help her. Was this outing just the first step?

Surely just helping her didn't mean he had to buy her such an expensive dress! The grand total for everything he'd gotten her from SEASONS would have cost a good chunk of her paycheck if she still had her old job. But she didn't have a job. She didn't have much money. And now she apparently didn't even have a home!

Still, a tiny part of her had to wonder… the dress, the invitation… was this meant to be a date?

Anna laughed out loud at herself, startling a couple exiting the police station.

 _Yeah, Anna. Hilarious. Let's get this over with._

She entered the building with newly budded determination. But as she approached the front desk, she thought back to the note left by Rapunzel and Eugene. Okay, so nothing could excuse the multiple betrayals of trust. They'd sent her on a hoax vacation to get her out of the way so they could take her things and sell her house—Elsa's house! Their parents' house! The house she, Elsa and Rapunzel had grown up in. But... could she really report them without knowing the full story?

 _One day, we'll explain everything. We hope you can forgive us then._

Would Rapunzel expect her forgiveness if there wasn't a reason for everything? A _good_ reason?

 _Don't be such a pushover, Anna!_

Her blood boiled as her ego tried to mediate her feelings. A shout erupted from the entrance. She jumped and glanced back. Three officers grappled with a scruffy man who kicked out, swung his arms, dove and squatted to free himself from their grip, even though they'd already cuffed him. The four of them knocked past Anna as if they didn't even see her in their path.

She gulped as she caught the perpetrator's startlingly silver eye. He had a thin mustache and neatly trimmed beard that hugged his jawline, which twitched as he shot her a leering smile.

"What'cha lookin' at, luv? Like a man in cuffs?!"

Anna backed up although the officers escorted him deeper into the station, putting more distance between her and him. His laugh could be heard even as he went out of sight.

She realized her heart was racing and she had leaned back against a wall with a bulletin board. It was covered in wanted posters. Would Rapunzel and Eugene's faces go up there if she made this report?

Anna's mouth went dry. She didn't even glance at the desk as she turned back toward the door and left the station.

She walked until she was a few buildings away. Only then did she stop.

Did she have the heart to report her own cousin? She didn't know. But… Rapunzel was the last living relative she'd ever been close with. So, she'd at least sleep on it.

But first, dinner with Hans Westergaard.

* * *

 **A/N:** I rarely get more than a half hour at a time to work on these stories, so yeah… slow updates, lol. Thank you for reading! The dinner will be the next chapter. Stay tuned!


	7. Chapter 7

Getting changed in a subway station restroom stall was a challenge, one which resulted in a bruise on Anna's elbow and a cramp in her calf. Mostly, it was something she hoped never to have to do again. But after fifteen minutes of wriggling, grunting, avoiding contact with the toilet and trying not to think too much about her poor suitcase on the grimy floor, Anna managed to change into the green dress Hans had purchased for her. She pulled her hair back into a high updo and slipped on the tan pumps before completing the outfit with the earrings and bracelets. The shoes took some practice to walk in. Of course, someone walked in right as she sashayed back and forth in front of the restroom mirror. That put an end to her practicing. But she managed to get to the restaurant, Pompilios. She had passed the place many times, but never gone inside.

The charming building glowed from accent lighting in the bushes and trees out front. It looked like a house made of white painted brick with black frame windows and flowery juliette balconies. Hans stood to the side of the entrance in a dark sky blue collared shirt and navy dress pants. He watched her as she came up with the suitcase rolling alongside. His hand held an aquamarine colored gift bag. But since he was polite enough not to ask about her suitcase, Anna opted not to ask about his gift bag.

"Great, come on!" he said with a touch of excitement as he led the way. He even held the door open for her again.

Anna checked in her suitcase with the attendant at the coat room. It had been a long time since she'd been anywhere fancy enough to have a coat room. Hans said nothing as she rejoined him to be led by the hostess to their table. Though the outside had looked like someone's home, the inside was quite different. The interior walls were plain white, made to feel brighter by the crystal chandeliers and lamps. Everywhere Anna looked, her gaze met impressionist paintings and statues or ornate clocks and china atop antique wood furniture. Various scents tickled her nose as they walked through—freshly baked bread, roasted garlic, hot cheese and more.

Every dining room was a little different—they passed one with a bar in the corner, the chatter within much louder than another room they passed that overlooked a garden in the back of the building. The room their hostess took them to was lined by dozens of mirrors instead of paintings upon the walls. They were seated next to each other at one of the many round tables covered in fine white linen cloths. The centerpiece was comprised of a little vase with roses and two white candles on either side of it. Anna blushed at the romantic atmosphere as she sat down and accepted a menu from the hostess who departed shortly after. When she eyed the prices for the entrees, she nearly fainted in her seat.

"Am I um… going to be expected to pay for this? Just… out of curiosity…"

Anna cleared her throat uncomfortably and peeked over her menu at Hans, who was deaf to her question and too busy staring at the two empty chairs at their table. She wondered if someone would be joining them.

"Anna."

She twitched at the way he said her name.

"Yes?"

He turned toward her and fixed her with such a serious gaze that it made her head spin.

"You should be brave if you want to be with the person you love. Willing to overcome difficulties, even family. If you truly love someone, what does it matter what others think? Don't you agree?"

"Well, sure… Other people shouldn't matter," she answered cautiously. Had he gone drinking before meeting her?

"I know Kris really well. He doesn't give up on people… I'm sure he still thinks of you. Please give him another chance."

Anna's eyebrows knitted together in thought. "Huh?" Drunk. He had to be drunk.

"You miss Kris too, don't you? You went all the way to Japan to meet with him… but you needed more courage to see him?"

 _What's all this nonsense?_

"Huh? Who?"

"You probably didn't know, but he's back in Arendelle."

 _Kris. Oh! Kristoff! Didn't he say he lived in Japan?_

"N-no, I didn't know… but I don't really want to see him."

She almost yelped as his hands lunged forth and closed over hers, making her knock her menu into her empty glass. She frowned as she looked straight into his sympathetic green eyes.

"I know how hard it must have been. But isn't love worth a little pain?"

She groaned at this over-the-top cliché. "Look, I think we have a misunderstanding… It's not…"

"Hm?"

She glanced up and down between his hands on hers and his intense gaze, wondering if the sweat she felt on her face was visible.

"To be honest, we're not…"

Hans looked past her, suddenly alert. "Here they come. Let's both be brave, okay?"

Anna opened and closed her mouth until she turned in her seat and spotted Kristoff approaching in a light blue suit with a redhaired woman in an elegant floral wrap dress. Anna had seen the woman before in posters and on TV—Ariel Waters!

Anna squirmed and slapped at Hans's hands to get his attention.

"W-wait! Actually, it's not… we're not…!"

But as he looked at her with confusion, she chickened out. Was it too late to tell the truth?

 _Kill me now, please_ , she thought.

Ariel helped herself to the other chair next to Anna as Kristoff sat across from her. Anna immediately snatched her menu up to bury her nose in it with the hope that Kristoff would not notice her. She could see Hans smiling toward his friend, obviously waiting for the moment of recognition. The three began to chat amongst themselves. They had obviously known each other for a while but had not seen one another as a group for some time. Ariel monopolized the conversation for the most part, rapid firing Kristoff with question after question about Japan until Hans chimed in to remind her he had been there recently too.

"Yes, but you didn't _live_ there," Ariel teased.

Anna felt Hans turn his eyes toward her as he let out an empty laugh. She ignored him and continued to pore over her menu. The awkward lull in conversation started to worry her, but then Ariel squealed. The sound hurt Anna's ears.

"Look what Kristoff got me! You can hear the ocean waves when you hold it up to your ear!"

Intrigued, Anna peeked out from her menu to watch as Ariel held out a beautiful white porcelain conch shell speckled with blue and lined in gold. Ariel finally noticed her then.

"Who is this?" the singer asked. Anna let out the smallest squeak and quickly hid behind her menu again.

"Ah," she heard Hans answer. "She's my friend. We just ran into each other. Is it okay if she joins us? Anna? Anna." He snatched the menu from her. "This is Ariel Waters… and Kristoff Bjorgman."

Anna bit her lower lip and cringed as she looked from the redhaired woman to the blond man.

Kristoff smiled. "Nice to meet you." She held in a relieved sigh that he did not appear to recognize her. In fact, Anna guessed she didn't make much of an impression because Kristoff then turned toward Ariel and began talking about his ice machine company.

"…the difference in the States is with all the small, local companies. That's why we haven't bothered. But uniformity is so important in Japan… when we were successful with the Mikitani branch hotel group, all the others followed…"

"What are you doing?" Hans hissed at her. "Say something." She felt him poke her foot with his. Annoyed by the bizarre situation he'd set up, she kicked his foot away with the heel of her pump. He glared.

"What will you do next?" Ariel asked as Hans kicked Anna's heel with vengeance. "Now that you're done in Japan."

Anna winced as her heel knocked back into her other foot. She would probably have a bruise later. For that, she stomped on the toe of Hans's shoe. He retaliated, but Anna managed to dodge. He got her the second time, though.

"I'm not exactly done… I have to keep on top of the office in Tokyo to make sure they reach our projection by the end of the year." A waiter appeared to pour water for them all and to hand Kristoff and Ariel menus.

"Ooh? You'll do that from here in Arendelle?"

Kristoff laughed for some reason. Both he and Ariel were completely unaware of the violent foot war going on under the table. "Well, I'm back to recruit engineers to make creative improvements on our basic lines… if I succeed here, that will carry over to our business in Japan."

"So you're not running overseas again any time soon?"

"Not just yet, no."

"Good! Hans and I missed you. Right, Hans?"

Hans looked up distractedly, blinking. Anna used that moment to scoot her chair away from him, her feet now out of reach. Hans nodded absently to his friends and suddenly kicked beneath the table, getting Anna right in the shin. Anna squawked and bent over in her chair, pain shooting up and down her leg.

"Are you okay?!" Kristoff asked with worry while Ariel stared at her with wide eyes.

"Uh…" Anna bit her lip and tried to keep her face down, her eyes on the cutlery. "Y-yes, I'm fine… thank you."

There was a pause before Kristoff addressed her again.

"Hey… you're Anna Frost, aren't you? Do you remember me?"

She wondered how bad it would be if she just slinked down into her seat until she could slide under the table to escape them all.

"S-sorry, I don't…"

"In Osaka?"

"Ahh, that's right… So, we meet again! Hahahaha…"

Ariel's head perked at that. "She's Kris's friend too? Wow! How do you know each other?"

Anna forced herself not to look at Hans. She grabbed a piece of bread and chewed hungrily, hoping she might choke and avoid the situation.

 _Or I can lunge out of this chair and make a run for it. Westergaard would probably come after me._

Kristoff chuckled lightly. It wasn't an unpleasant sound, Anna thought.

"Heh! We met just a few days ago at the hotel where Hans was staying. You didn't mention that you and Hans were friends…"

Anna laughed nervously and stuffed even more bread into her mouth.

"Did you enjoy Osaka?" Kristoff asked.

"Y-yeth! Tremendouthy!" she answered with a mouthful.

"So you and Hans met… recently?"

She swallowed the bread at once, scratching her throat. She nodded and ignored the pain as she said, "Yup! New friends."

She could feel Hans glaring daggers at her, but she was too scared to look.

* * *

After a very awkward dinner in which Hans was silent unless Ariel or Kristoff asked him something, the four walked out into the chilly evening. A thin dusting of snow layered the sidewalk. It must have fallen while they dined. It was nothing compared to the few inches that had accumulated days ago and still coated the bushes, the trees and the ground.

"Anna, do you live close by?" Kristoff asked.

Anna frowned when she thought of her house full of a stranger's belongings.

"No," she answered. "I live pretty out of the way."

"I'll drive Anna home," Hans said firmly.

Kristoff smiled and then offered his arm to Ariel. They bid Hans and Anna a good night before they left. As she waved the other pair off, Anna didn't fail to notice the strange look on Hans's face as he watched his friends go. His expression darkened into rage as soon as he whirled on her.

"What the hell was that?!"

Another group exited the restaurant. Anna backed up along the sidewalk to get out of their way, trying not to let Hans's fury get to her.

"I agree. What the hell was that?!"

The singer's face scrunched up in bafflement. "That's what I'm asking. You lied about Kristoff!"

"Well _you_ just created an incredibly awkward situation for me! What if I _had_ been his ex-girlfriend?! What are you playing at?!"

"You don't get to play the victim here! You're the one who lied to _me_!"

"Please, let me explain."

"How could you possibly explain?"

"As I told you, it was an emergency. You wouldn't listen to me."

Hans stared dumbly. "What?"

"In Osaka, at the hotel! I was desperate, and I got a little carried away with my story… but I promise to pay you back. That's what you want, right?"

"What I _want_? You think you can justify conning me? You have a lot of nerve."

"C-conning? How dare you!"

"Seriously?!"

"Besides, you took advantage of me just now."

Hans gawked at her. "What?!"

"If I'd really been Kristoff's ex-girlfriend, don't you think dinner just now would have been awful?! What were you thinking? I don't know _why_ you did that, but you shouldn't meddle. It's immature."

"You're the liar, and you're calling me immature?" he snapped. "You're really something… I'd be surprised if I get my money back."

The insinuation about her character made Anna snarl. "Don't worry. I know how greedy you must be. You can even count it when I get it to you, if you like!" Without waiting for his next retort, she squatted down to bunch up some of the dirty snow off the ground and pelted it at him. Brown and white snow splattered all over his shirt as he cried out.

Anna ran in the opposite direction and did not look back.

* * *

About fifteen minutes later, she ended up having to turn around to reclaim her suitcase from the restaurant. Fortunately, Hans was long gone. She hoped to never have to see his stupid perfect face again.

All she wanted was to go home. But she couldn't even do that. So, she wandered the city streets instead. She moped from one block to the next, occasionally passing drunken groups exiting bars. It was getting late enough that shops were just starting to close up.

After a point, she stopped at the edge of the park and checked her wallet. She flipped through the paper bills, counting. She probably had enough for two or three meals. With a sigh, she slowly accepted that she couldn't just sulk all night.

 _Well, I could, but I'd be very cold after a while…_

She glanced down at the snow at her feet and thought of her sister again, which made her think of the house. What if she just went to the new homeowners and explained everything? Surely they wouldn't want a house that couldn't legally be theirs.

Anna stood up with that little ray of hope. In spite of her of exhaustion, she picked up her suitcase and began to sprint homeward. After all, she couldn't give up so easily. Her own father had designed the house for her mother shortly before they were married! It was a special place. It wasn't just a house. It had been her family's own private little kingdom where her parents had been king and queen, and she, Elsa and Rapunzel had grown up safe and loved.

She ran uphill from the edge of downtown and into the outskirts of the residential area. She darted past the old playground where she'd skidded her knees and fallen from the monkey bars after school. There was the church on Evensen Road, the one that Rapunzel and Elsa had convinced her was haunted. Around the corner, she ran past the bakery where she'd tried her first sunshine cake. She passed her old schools, the dry cleaners, the funeral home, the comic book store, the Indian restaurant and then house after house she knew intimately from bike rides, walks and drives.

Finally, she came to the end of Crocus Boulevard and had to lower her suitcase. The adrenaline of her resolve had made it easy to haul the suitcase around, but now its weight caught up to her. She chuckled when she saw the lights were on in the house. Someone was home.

 _Her_ home. They'd understand. They'd have to!

She took a deep breath and pushed the gate open, bravely walking up the flat stone path that led up to her front door. She ignored her nerves as she reached forward and rang the doorbell. A few seconds passed before she saw movement in the window. As poised as she wanted to be, she trembled with her hand on the suitcase handle.

The resident inside unlocked the door and turned its handle. After a pause, the door opened, revealing Hans Westergaard across the threshold. He stared at Anna in shocked silence.

She stared back at him with equal shock.

* * *

 **A/N:** That was a fun chapter to write, ha! I will try to update again soon. Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

Hans almost laughed. She was still wearing the dress and shoes he'd gotten for her. It seemed like a joke, how the same insufferable woman kept popping up. But Hans just glared as she babbled out in equal surprise her reasons for turning up at his door. He stared over her shoulder at the fluffy snow drifting down from the cloudy evening sky, finding it difficult to focus as she spoke. He couldn't quite muster up much sympathy.

"…and trust me, I didn't want to run into _you_ again either…"

Well, at least she knew the feeling was mutual. He crossed his arms as he leaned against the door frame, unblinking. He was pleased to notice she shivered, probably unnerved by his apathy.

"But the fact of the matter is, you're in _my_ house. I know it probably sounds ridiculous to you. It's…"

His frown deepened as she went on to explain something about how she'd been swindled out of her own home. Either the woman was a complete idiot, or she thought Hans was. Actually, she had to be a fool to think he believed her, so that would make it both.

"…my own cousin. Well, her _and_ her scumbag boyfriend. Anyway, sorry, too much information. I'll need to talk to the lawyer. And of course, I apologize for the inconvenience to you—"

"I'm going to stop you right there," he interrupted, holding his hand up. Anna trailed off and blinked speechlessly back and forth between his hand and his face.

Still, on the off chance that she was telling the truth…

He highly doubted it, but it would be better to check with his manager. His mouth turned up in frustration as he stepped aside to let her in. Anna walked past him, the relief in her eyes betraying her misinterpretation.

 _Talk to Gene first._

"Thank you," Anna said softly as she hung back in the entrance foyer.

Hans did not even look at her as he strode past her and into the living room to get his phone. He heard her footsteps follow.

"Um…"

He held his hand up again to shush Anna as he dialed Gene's number, tired of her prattling. The line rang three times before Gene picked up.

"Hans, baby!" Gene answered, his voice as bubbly as champagne. "How do you like the new house? Tres magnifique, am I right?"

"Yes, Gene, it's great—"

" _BOOM!_ Another win. Could not have found a better price for the fjord district, my friend. The seller practically gave it away. She must have been desperate."

Hans glanced back darkly at Anna, who stood awkwardly at the center of the living room now.

"Yes, well, about that…"

"And to think! You were worried about not seeing the place—"

"Gene. Listen. There's a problem."

"But I told you, Hans baby. Leave it to Genie. Your wish is my command."

There was a slight pause in which Gene finally registered Hans's news, then a mangled shriek of realization. His manager hated when Hans wasn't totally happy with something. That was one great thing about Gene.

"Did you just say problem?! _Problem?!_ What problem?!"

As Hans delved into the sad story Anna had just shared with him, or at least the parts he hadn't spaced out on, Gene gasped and groaned. He asked Hans to 'sit tight' for a moment so that he could look over the closing statement for the house in addition to other documents. A moment later, he came back to the phone with good news.

"Look, Hans. From what I can tell, this is a solid contract. I'll check with the lawyer, but the house is definitely yours. The young lady is just going to have to take up her troubles with her cousin or whoever. It's not your problem. Okay?"

Hans breathed out in relief.

"Thanks, Gene. That's all I needed to hear. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"You got it, baby."

A victorious grin crept over Hans's lips as he turned to face Anna. Now at least he could get rid of her in good conscience.

"Look. I checked, and everything's in order with the house." He was proudly immune to her wounded puppy-dog stare. For all he knew, her story was completely fabricated.

"Ah!"

Her sudden exclamation startled him. She squatted down next to her suitcase and quickly unzipped it, digging around inside until she pulled out a small laptop. She held it up to show him as if he would understand her private epiphany. He only raised his eyebrow at the fact that she was still squatting.

"I can pay you back with this!" she exclaimed cheerily.

Hans scoffed. "What, an old laptop?"

Anna stood and shook her head, clutching the device to herself as if it were precious. "No! I mean, there's a novel on here… I'll give you the profits from that once I publish it. I can even give you the rights…"

"Oh?" He feigned an impressed tone. Was she serious? "I don't doubt your ability to make up stories, but right now I just want you out of my house."

She stiffened and scrutinized the furniture.

"My father built this house for my mother," she said, finally looking at him again. "I grew up here with my sister and my cousin. I… have _so_ many memories here."

Hans looked away and tuned out her sorrowful voice, waiting for a decent pause. It came as she sniffed and broke down crying.

This time, her tears wouldn't work on him. He quickly moved toward her, grabbing her arm in one hand and her suitcase in the other as he pushed her along toward the front door. She squawked in confusion. Obviously she'd thought she could trick him again.

Too bad.

He kept her from falling as she stumbled through the foyer. There was no need for her to get hurt. He just wanted her gone.

Hans opened the door and, though he tried to be gentle, firmly pushed the woman out of his house, along with her baggage. Anna cried out as her suitcase hit the ground, but Hans slammed his door shut behind her.

He heard her wailing on the other side, but he stepped away from the door and ignored it. He had to set clear boundaries to stop her from bothering him again.

Enough was enough.

* * *

Birdsong woke him the following morning. It was so peaceful compared to the honking, buzzing traffic he was used to at his old apartment; the temptation was too great not to sleep in another half hour, and he felt refreshed from the improved sleep.

Gene had been right. This place would be good for him.

When he lost count of the number of alarms that went off on his phone, he sat up and stretched his arms high above his head, then behind him. It was finally time to get up. But he could take his time, at least. He didn't have to be anywhere until late afternoon.

He took a minute to take in his surroundings. The place felt more like a home than his old cramped apartment ever could. He smiled at the huge poster of himself above his headboard; the photograph had been taken at his first concert after the release of his second album. He'd worn a uniform much like a Victorian naval officer's, which had been a huge hit with the audience. Was that already four years ago?

He glanced around at the other framed photographs and artwork in the room. There were a couple of his family, though he tried not to look too long at those. He smiled at one of himself with Kris after graduation. The photograph had been folded to exclude the third person from the frame, but Hans didn't dwell too much on that.

He hopped out of bed and took a quick shower before frying up some eggs in coconut oil. He gulped down a few chunks of pineapple and a cup of black coffee afterwards; the latter was meant to make him more alert.

As he sat at the breakfast table while drinking his coffee, his eyes wandered about the lower level of the house. Once again, he took a moment to appreciate Gene's good taste. Unfortunately, his good mood soured when he went to rinse out his coffee mug and his gaze fell upon a certain aquamarine gift bag on the island counter.

" _I'm still mad you didn't tell me you were going to Japan! I'd have asked for a souvenir."_

He scowled and pulled out the string of pearls inside the bag. He'd bought them specially for Ariel in Osaka.

" _Look what Kristoff got me! You can hear the ocean waves when you hold it up to your ear!"_

Hans closed his fist around the pearls until his knuckles whitened. Kristoff wasn't even trying to win Ariel's heart and he was able to make her happy. Who was Hans kidding?

He stuffed the pearls back into their gift bag and dropped them into the little trash bin in the corner between the kitchen and the breakfast room.

There. That was better. In a way, it was good that he never got the chance to embarrass himself with the gift to Ariel. An ornamental sea shell was one thing, but jewelry? The meaning behind his gift would have just made the dinner even more awkward.

A certain tearful redhead came to mind as he remembered said dinner.

Hans groaned. There was nothing to feel sorry for. _She'd_ swindled _him_!

A run would do him good. He needed to blow off some steam. He dashed upstairs for a quick change into tech pants and two long-sleeved shirts. He threw on warm socks and his running jacket with gloves ready in the pockets, already cheering up by the time he mixed and gulped down his pre-workout drink. He headed out the front door, eager to explore his new neighborhood.

The singer stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted the familiar form curled up on the bench out front. She had a jacket draped as a blanket over herself.

If only he were imagining that strawberry blonde hair. But no, it was definitely Anna.

He stormed up to the bench, his anger bolstering with each step until he stopped and towered over her.

"You're still here?!" he yelled. "Are you crazy?! Get up!"

She stirred from her sleep, slowly sitting up. She turned and looked at him with heavy bags under her eyes, mumbling through a coughing fit.

"I don't feel well…"

Hans shook his head. "Fine, but sleeping outside in the dead of winter isn't going to help. You're lucky last night was a warmer one."

Anna nodded in a daze and kept staring into space. Was she even listening?

He waved his hand in font of her and snapped his fingers to get her attention. "I want you gone before I get back. Understood?"

Anna nodded again. This time, he was satisfied that she'd heard him. He ran out of the gate without looking back.

He took the path along the beach. It didn't go all the way around the fjord. After a couple of miles, the land rose up at a forested incline. There weren't many other houses close to the water, just the two or three that he could see. His new home would give him far more privacy than he expected. Between this pleasant discovery, the exercise and the crisp outdoor air, his spirits lifted.

He waited another twenty minutes before heading back to the house. It was just enough time to break into a healthy sweat, to get a good sense of the surrounding area and to give Anna enough time to clear off.

He didn't know whether to be surprised or not when, upon arriving back at the front gate, he found Anna had fallen asleep again on the bench. Less furious now and more just impatient, he tapped her shoulder. When he got no response, he tried shaking her. But this didn't wake her either.

"Hey."

Not a peep.

" _Hey_!"

He checked her neck for a pulse. It was there, but she was ice cold. Maybe it'd been colder throughout the night than he realized. He sighed and bent to pick her up and carry her into the house, ignoring the impulse to drop her into the snow and see if that might wake her. He had to admit, something seemed wrong with her.

Once inside, he laid her down on the couch and wrapped her in every throw blanket in sight. When she was tightly bundled in five layers, he checked her forehead again. It was hot compared to where he'd felt her neck. He frowned as he left her for a moment and came back with a thermometer. Just as he feared, she'd come down with a fever.

"Hey," he nudged her as he knelt beside her. This time, Anna opened her eyes. There was a moment of surprise when she realized she was back in the house, but she was too weak to react. "You need to see a doctor. You're sick."

Anna groaned and shook her head as she closed her eyes. "Please… just let me sleep a little, and I'll be fine…"

Hans held back a biting response. She wasn't faking it. It wouldn't kill him to let her nap a short while… right? He wasn't happy with the idea, but he wasn't a monster.

"Is there someone you can call?" he asked. But she'd already passed out again, leaving him to frown in thought.

He looked around and suddenly realized he'd left her suitcase outside. He ran out for it and set it next to the couch. After a quick glance to make sure Anna's eyes were still closed, he rummaged around in the bag. He hoped to find a cellphone or address book. Instead, his hand knocked against a rectangular object bundled up in some fabric. He slowly pulled this out and unfolded a carefully wrapped scarf to find a framed photograph. Both the glass and frame, comprised of jeweled snowflakes, had cracked. As he recalled tossing the suitcase out after her, he suddenly didn't feel too great about himself…

He held the photograph closer, his eyes widening at a younger, happier Anna shown standing with another woman in front of his new house. So, she might be telling the truth. But that wasn't what shocked him. What shocked him was that the other woman in the photograph was the late model, Elsa Frost.

"Frost…" he murmured.

" _I grew up here with my sister and cousin."_

Hans ran his finger across the damaged frame, stunned. So Anna was either the model's sister or cousin? He narrowed his eyes and turned back toward the couch, comparing the slumbering redhead to the platinum blonde in the photo. There was a tiny, microscopic resemblance, he supposed. He inched closer to study Anna's long eyelashes, the way her bangs lay on her forehead, her rosy cheeks and the freckles which dotted her face. Were those even a couple of freckles on her lips? He drew in closer to see…

"Elsa!"

Hans started and leaped back when Anna called out in her sleep. He looked down at the photo again. Whatever their relation, it was clear that both Elsa and the house meant a great deal to her.

He sighed and re-wrapped the picture before stuffing it deep into the suitcase. He'd just pretend he never saw it. It wasn't any of his business.

Irritated by the growing pity he felt for Anna, Hans sat on the floor facing the couch and watched her sleep as he debated what to do next.


	9. Chapter 9

It was difficult to process much through the haze of her fever. But at some point, Anna felt herself being turned on her sides and unwrapped from a cocoon of blankets she did not recall bundling herself up in. As soon as she had the thought, however, she was swept into another dream. She dreamt of laughter in the house the day Rapunzel came to live with them. There'd been spring flowers on the trees at the window. In her dream, the flowers fell to the ground and froze until they burst. She walked upstairs to tell Elsa, but her sister and cousin would not open their door.

The next time Anna woke up, it was either dusk or dawn, or very cloudy. She could tell from the sky out the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room. She lay stretched out on a chaise lounge, a cold, damp cloth spread over her forehead. She tried to turn over, though lack of strength only allowed her to turn her head and spot a half-filled water bottle on the coffee table. It impressed her for a moment that she had gotten herself into the house. She didn't remember stumbling in. Her head ached like she'd been out all night. Getting out of the chair seemed like an Olympian task at the moment. She would sleep a little more, and then worry about getting up.

The homey smell of cauliflower soup eventually woke her again. This time Hans was in the armchair that was kitty-corner to her. Anna jumped and sat upright in the chair. She'd forgotten all about him.

"You're awake."

She groaned and suddenly scrunched up her face as if in pain, putting her hands to the sides of her head as she sank back into the chair.

"M-my head… ooh, my head…" She made herself shake as she curled up and closed her eyes half-way. The singer scoffed and left her for a moment. She could hear him moving around the kitchen, but she didn't dare sit up to look. She still had to figure out what to do about her house.

There was silence for a second and Anna popped one eye open to peek at her surroundings. It still took her by surprise to see her parents' furniture replaced by more modern pieces.

"Ahem."

Anna jumped again and jerked her neck back to find the singer standing there with a steaming bowl on a small plate. He raised an eyebrow at her jumpiness as he set the plate down on the coffee table. Anna glanced at the steaming light liquid with spinach, onion, seasoning and bacon floating in it.

"I'm stepping out to run," Hans said. "Eat this."

She looked up at him carefully but nodded, still conscious of making her movements very deliberate and slow. If she appeared to be well, he might throw her out again. His absence would give her time to think.

A rumbling from her stomach broke the quiet. She looked down in embarrassment and made an exaggerated gasp as she sat up.

The singer didn't question this performance. He seemed distracted, in fact. But Anna wasn't going to complain about that. She heard him grab keys before he headed out, leaving her to her slow recovery.

As soon as she heard the front door shut, Anna grabbed the bowl of cauliflower soup… and promptly howled in pain when the hot ceramic burned her fingertips. She set it down and, more cautiously this time, lifted the plate instead. She blew at the surface of the soup and watched the steam slither away from her, making a kind of game of it for a couple minutes before she finally braved a sip from the spoon. The rich broth and hearty spinach doubled her hunger. She quickly ate spoonful after spoonful. It burnt the roof of her mouth to eat it so quickly, but that didn't bother her until the bowl was empty.

Her stomach growled.

She debated for all of one second before she jumped up to race to the refrigerator. Her eyes lit up as she opened it. Scores of vegetables, fruits and drinks dazzled her on the shelves. Her mouth watered at a carton of chocolate milk. She grabbed it and turned around to fling through the cabinets until she found where Hans kept his glasses. She poured herself a glass, swigged back the contents in a hurry and then poured herself another.

After that, she went into the pantry and took out a box of stroopwafels. She had a few of these before she noticed some glazed cherry crackers, a kind of cereal she loved as a child. Unable to resist, she whisked the box from its shelf and returned to the fridge in search of regular milk. The chocolate milk would go well with the cereal too but she didn't want Hans to notice how much of his food had been eaten. When she had no luck, she ended up using the chocolate milk, and she was grateful that she did. The chocolate really complemented the cherry flavor. After a few impatient spoonfuls, she carried the bowl back toward the eating area so she could eat at the breakfast table.

She lowered her hands to set the bowl down on the table and clumsily tilted it so that the contents spilled all over. The surprise of it made her drop and break the bowl. She cried out as it smashed into dozens of jagged pieces all over the floor.

For a moment, she just stared at the mess on the floor, partly disappointed, partly panicked. She moved to the kitchen corner for where she used to keep her roll of paper towels, but there were none there.

"Oh no..."

She checked underneath the counters, but Hans must not have bought any yet. Anna cursed and pulled out other drawers in search of kitchen towels. She halted her search when she heard keys jingling at the front door.

There wasn't enough time to clean the mess _and_ get back to her performance on the chaise lounge. She panicked again and leapt over the mess on the floor to sprint back to the living room. The door had opened and there were footsteps in the foyer. She threw herself into a sprawled lying position in the chair and clamped her eyes shut as she listened.

Slowly, the footsteps moved toward and up the stairs that looked away from the kitchen. Anna relaxed a little as she heard Hans moving around in the master bedroom upstairs. With luck, he would head straight back out the front door and give Anna a chance to clean up the disaster in the kitchen. She'd pretend to be asleep until he left. Then, she'd check the house for a broom and dustpan. Hans did not strike her as the type to notice if a single bowl of his went missing. But even if he did, it could have been lost when he moved, for all he knew.

A bedroom door shut, followed by Hans's footsteps back down the stairs. Anna relaxed her face as much as possible and braced herself. She waited to hear the singer go straight out the door, but he paused at the bottom of the stairs.

Anna's heart stopped as she held her breath and listened. He was just… standing there. Then, there were quick strides into the kitchen. She held in a groan and just did her best impression of her sleeping self, waiting for the horrible moment when—

"Are you _serious_?!"

There it was. She didn't have to see Hans to know he was furious. Anger radiated off from each step he took storming into the living room.

"Get up," he ordered.

Her game was up. He couldn't have been gone more than ten minutes before. She cleared her throat and slowly sat up, squinting her eyes open and wanting to shut them again after she met Hans's stony face.

"I… I'm too dizzy to get up. I'm still not—"

"You're well enough to make a mess in my house. Go clean it up."

At that, her eyes both popped open.

"I was planning to," she snapped.

"Get to it then."

"I need a broom… and a dustpan…"

Hans scowled. "In the closet under the stairs."

The gravity behind his stare made her squirm in her seat until she got up to fetch said broom and dustpan. She found them hanging on the door hook and brought them into the kitchen, finding that Hans had already blotted up the chocolate milk with several kitchen towels. She kept her head down and started sweeping up the ceramic pieces, careful to brush even the smallest onto the dustpan. All the while, she felt Hans glaring at her. She grit her teeth when she finally finished and dropped everything into the trash bin. Then she turned around to find him flipping through cash he'd pulled from his open wallet.

"There. All done."

He stopped what he was doing and walked up to her, holding out a hearty stack of money. Anna blinked as her gaze dropped down to the money being offered.

"Um…?"

"You're homeless, aren't you? You have nowhere to go?"

The question hit Anna harder than if Hans had smacked her.

"I'm not homeless!"

"Then why did you sleep outside last night?"

Anna's face turned red as her fists balled up enough to whiten her knuckles. He knew why. He was in _her_ house.

She smacked the hand with the money away and snatched her suitcase, angrily rolling it all the way to the front door. Thankfully, Hans did not try to stop her when she walked out.

* * *

Anna walked along the edge of Midsummer Park, gently kicking every stray rock or twig in her path on the sidewalk. Westergaard wasn't wrong; she was homeless. That was why she had stormed out so angrily. And the very people she should have been able to call were the ones who swept the rug out from under her.

She stopped at the bus stop on the corner and sat in the bench there with her suitcase resting in front of her. She had taken the bus from there many a time. But now she reflected on the difference of leaving on a bus you knew you would also come home on.

It wasn't that she was hopeless. There were several things she _could_ do. She could go to the police again. She could pay a visit to her old workplace and see if they would help. She had a friend or two from college she could reach out to, though it'd been years since she had seen any of them. Every option meant the heartbreak of leaving her family's house behind her.

Her nose stung as tears threatened to overwhelm her. But as an elderly woman approached from the opposite side of the street, Anna reined control over herself.

"What a pretty dress!" The old woman smiled down at her.

Anna looked down at herself, having forgotten she was still wearing the green dress from dinner.

"Th-thanks…" She sniffed once and that was the end of her tears. If she still had the receipt, she could go return the dress. That would give her several thousand kroner!

Quickly, she undrew the zipper of her suitcase and dug her hand in to feel for the bag from Seasons. When she couldn't find it, she lay the entire case open and flat on the ground, ignoring the quizzical look from the old woman. She dug through her leggings, shirts, socks, panties and bras. She opened all the pockets. The shopping bag wasn't in there.

Her heart sank as she sat back and imagined herself tossing out the bag, receipt inside, back in the subway station restroom. It was such a simple thing, she didn't even remember doing it. But at the time, she wouldn't have been thinking about returning such a gorgeous piece of clothing, a gift she hadn't yet understood at the time.

A raggedy machinic huff and squealing brakes made Anna look up to find the bus rolling in to the stop. The old woman nodded to her before approaching the opening door. Anna found herself glued to her bench seat as the bus lingered for a minute. When the driver was convinced that she wasn't going to board, he closed the door and put the bus in gear.

Anna watched the bus drive away. In the event that she was able to get herself to move, there would be another bus in a couple hours. For the moment, staying put and feeling pitiful was more appealing than facing reality.

After a few moments of studying cracks in the pavement, she heard a car pull up to the bus stop. She looked up to see a certain auburn-haired singer gawking at her from the driver's seat of a sleek white convertible. She was so startled to see him there that she stood up.

"What are you doing? Get in!" he yelled out his window.

She merely glared at him and grabbed for her suitcase to walk away from him. But she'd only taken a few short steps before she heard the hum of the car as it rolled up behind her, following along her path on the sidewalk.

"Get in, I said!"

Anna stopped in her tracks. She glared at him again and turned around, beginning to walk in the opposite direction. She was sure he would drive off after that, but instead he put his car in reverse and caught up with her.

" _Argh_!"

Again, she turned around and walked in her original direction, at a much faster pace this time. Again, Hans followed, driving parallel to the sidewalk. Finally, Anna stopped and turned toward him.

"Knock it off!"

Hans braked and looked at her with his arm resting outside the open window. He looked from her, to the suitcase, back to the bus stop and then at her again.

"How are you planning to pay me back?" he asked.

Anna opened her mouth to snap at him again. She immediately shut it. She didn't have an answer yet. She wanted to get him his money, wanted him out of her life, especially now that he was living in _her_ house.

"Anna, please just get in the car."

She inhaled deeply and held her breath for just a second before letting it out again. Then, feeling defeated, she rolled her bag around to his passenger side and got into the car with him.

* * *

Hans and Anna sat facing each other at the breakfast table. Anna hard a hard time meeting his gaze, and so she kept looking down at the glass top of the table surface. It was quite different from her own breakfast table, which was god knows where. Hans didn't even use a table cloth! Unless he just hadn't bought some yet. Then, she had a thought: Hans probably ate so _perfectly_ that he never spilled anything.

She chuckled darkly.

"So…" Hans's voice forced her to look at him. "You have no job?"

She nodded.

"Nowhere to go."

She nodded again.

"And no family to turn to?"

Anna hesitated, thinking of Rapunzel. But she ended up nodding again.

"All right," he said, sucking his breath in through his teeth before he let a long sigh out. He ran his hand over his face as if he'd had a long, long day. But it was still morning. "I will let you stay here…" Anna's ears perked up. "…but you will have to cook, clean and do housework to earn your keep." His phone dinged, and he pulled it out to check it. He looked puzzled by whatever had popped up on his mobile screen.

Anna's face scrunched up with displeasure. "Oh, lovely. You're letting me earn my keep in my own house?"

Hans nodded distractedly. "And breakfast must be ready by 7:00AM every morning. The cleaning and laundry will be daily. Oh, and if you can stay in your room when I'm home to avoid disturbing me…" He trailed off as he tapped away at his phone, not even looking at her.

Anna sighed. She supposed she should be grateful. It was a temporary solution to being homeless.

"Fine," she said. "Which room will be mine?" She half-expected him to stick her in the closet under the stairs.

"Huh? Oh…" He finally looked at her again after sticking his phone into his jacket pocket. "The room by the second staircase from the loft. I was using it for storage, but… there should be enough space for you."

She bit back a heated remark.

"Thank you."

"This is just for now," he said as she stood and started to take her suitcase. "I expect you to get back on your feet within the week."

"Thank you, all the same," she said with a forced smile. Then she took her bag and headed upstairs to scope out her new room. Her parents had used the room that looked out over the living room for storage too. Depending on how much Hans had in the room, it would be plenty of space for her.

She was pleased to find there were only a few stacks of boxes and bins up there. There was no bed, but she would bring that up later. In the worst-case scenario, she could just sleep in the chaise lounge downstairs.

For now, in an act of good faith, she would roll up her sleeves and find the supplies needed to get started on the cleaning.

* * *

Now that the mess with Anna was, at least temporarily, sorted out, Hans ran out to check his mailbox. The text message he received from Ariel had said, " _did u get the invitation?_ ". He could only assume the invitation—to what, he wondered—arrived the day before, when he hadn't checked his mail.

He stepped out of the lattice gate and opened the black mailbox immediately outside. His fingers closed over a silver envelope, which he pulled out to discover had come from Kristoff's company, Wintra, Ltd.

Hans took a moment to appreciate how quickly Gene had gotten his new address to all of his contacts. How else would Wintra have known where to reach Hans?

He tore open the envelope and found an invitation within to a welcome home reception for the following evening. It was being sponsored for Kristoff by his company's Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. Of course, Hans would go.

With a chuckle, Hans took his cellphone out to reply to Ariel.

He'd barely just sent the " _yes_ " when there was another incoming text from his favorite redhead.

" _can u meet me at Pierce?"_

Hans's heart stopped. Pierce's was a department store… and, incidentally, where Hans and Ariel had gone on their first date. That is if it could be called a first date.

The singer didn't even blink before he jumped into his car to head downtown and meet her.

* * *

Hans found Ariel right away near the escalators in the entrance lobby. Her beautiful red tresses were pulled back by a black bowed ribbon… also just like on their first date.

His heart fluttered somewhat when she waved him over. He was beginning to wonder…

"What's up?" he asked. "You don't usually call me out like this."

Ariel made a prayer-like gesture with clasped hands as she winked at him. "Sorry, but it's an emergency! My father's birthday kind of sneaked up on me, and I need a man's insight for gift shopping."

Hans felt his heart sink, but he was still glad to spend time with her as they drifted from shop to shop.

Papa Waters, officially Triton Waters, was an intimidating man from what Hans recalled of their first and only meeting. The man had a fierce passion for his daughter's singing career. Hans remembered how Triton had reiterated, over and over, that Hans was not to distract Ariel too much from her dreams. He could still hear his ex-girlfriend's embarrassment through cries of, "Enough, daddy!" and "Oh, stop, daddy!" Hans still envied how Ariel had the support of her parent.

Ariel did not exaggerate when she said she needed help picking something. They looked at suits, they looked at watches, they looked at hardware, computers, snack baskets, liquor and more. Every time Ariel pointed something out and asked Hans for his opinion, he was enthusiastic merely because she picked it. Part of him was sorry that he wasn't more helpful, but mostly he was just looking to extend the outing so that he could spend this time alone with her.

But Hans could eventually sense her frustration. After leaving the record store, something occurred to him. He gently took Ariel's hand into his to stop her from darting into the next store.

"I think I know what your father would really love."

Ariel's whole face brightened, though she gently took her hand out of his.

"Yeah?"

He nodded. "Why not just write him a song? He loves your music, doesn't he?"

Hans loved watching the changing expressions on her face, from pensive to agreement and then wonder. She tapped her fist onto her palm and grinned at him as she called him a genius.

Then she hugged him, and his world went still.

"I'm gonna miss you when I move to Glowerhaven!"

Then everything went to shit.

"What?"

She broke the hug and looked up at him.

"Yeah… I'm working with my agent now to get a contract with a studio there. I wanted a change in scene."

Glowerhaven was significantly smaller than Arendelle, though some celebrities lived there for the prestige. It was looked at as kind of an old Arendelle. It was the place to be before the booming economy shifted decades ago. The buildings there, and probably the people too, were more traditional than in modern Arendelle. But Hans already knew the real reason Ariel would want to move there. His brother Eric worked as a surgeon at Glowerhaven Municipal Hospital.

His phone dinged to notify him of a text message, but Hans was too stunned to care. Somehow it surprised him that Ariel would still chase after Eric. It was already several years since…

"That's five hours away," he said when he realized he'd been too silent. "Won't your family miss you?"

Ariel had several sisters in addition to her protective father at home. His phone went off again. He glanced at the screen this time, surprised to see Anna's name pop up on his screen. He forgot he'd added her number previously to be able to get in touch with her about his money. He ignored her message again as Ariel began to answer.

"Five hours isn't like the other side of the world." She giggled.

After a third message from Anna, Hans opened his texts to see what she could possibly be bothering him about.

" _WHERE'S YOUR VACUUM?_ " asked the first message, followed by: " _Does Your Highness not have a vacuum?!_ " and finally, an impatient, " _HELLOOOOOO?"_

"Oh, for the love of…" he trailed off as he quickly input a reply to get Anna to shut up. " _will pick up vacuum omw home,"_ he sent.

"You okay?" Ariel asked, watching him.

Hans jerked his head up and let out a nervous laugh before stowing his phone away. If it went off again, he'd put his phone on silent.

"Yes, fine. Just surprised, is all. I'd really miss you, Ariel."

She smiled. It was that very moment that Hans realized that she had no idea how much he still loved her. The thought was followed by the passionate decision that he would propose to her. Enough time had passed. His friendship with Kris wouldn't be in any danger now. Yes, he'd propose. Ariel would see how deeply he still cared for her… they could be together.

"You haven't gotten a place yet though?"

Ariel nodded. "We're waiting for everything to fall into place with the studio first."

 _Good_ , he thought. That left him enough time to buy a ring.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thanks for reading/following/favoriting! 😊 Hans is totally John Mayer's "Still Feel Like Your Man" about Ariel here, lolol.


	10. Chapter 10

That evening, Anna hummed as she moved throughout the house collecting all the smaller trash bins to empty into a larger bag in the kitchen. There was no getting around the fact that she was now a voluntary Cinderella. But if she kept her spirits up, she wouldn't dwell on it.

She lined the bags on the floor and removed the lid from the larger bin to haul out the kitchen bag. Instantly, her nose wrinkled up as the odors of cleaning solution and sour milk assaulted her senses. How had Hans accumulated so much trash after just a day? She shook her head as she let the bag drop onto the kitchen floor. The thing started to sag as if it would vomit its contents everywhere. Remembering Hans's earlier fury over spilled cereal, Anna dropped to her knees to stop the bag from spewing out its smelly trash. That was when a certain cyan gift bag caught her eye.

She was reminded of the painfully awkward dinner which Hans had orchestrated to be her reunion with Kristoff. That was when she'd last seen the gift bag. She picked it up and fished out a black velvet case from inside. Her eyes grew when she opened the case to find a gleaming pearl bracelet inside.

But when her initial surprise subsided, she clicked her tongue and frowned. "He just threw this out...?! How wasteful!"

She stared at the triad of brilliant diamonds set in between each smooth pearl, her fingers trembling as she calculated how much the bracelet must be worth. Surely Hans hadn't meant to discard this?

Anna's brow wrinkled as she again thought back to the unpleasant dinner. Perhaps the pearls had been intended for Ariel. She understood the other three were friends. But then why wouldn't Hans have given his gift? She stared into space as her writing brain began to buzz with possibilities.

"In any case!" She stopped herself. It was none of her business. "Finders keepers."

With that, she tucked the bracelet into her pocket and went back to work. First, she cleared section by section of the fridge to wipe it down. This was not something she'd done on a regular basis previously, so there were actually a few unidentifiable stains she had to put real elbow grease into. Then, she re-organized the food as best she could. The 100% grass-fed milk and pulp-free orange juice went up in the largest shelf space up top. She also squeezed a vitamin water and mulled wine on their sides in the stacked rack meant for smaller bottles. Next she stacked the Greek yogurts into one pull-out drawer, combining apples, lemons, lime and oranges together in the drawer next to it. Below that was space for the egg carton and container of leftover cauliflower soup, plus the remaining ingredients. On and on she worked, designating one whole shelf for a troupe of club soda cans. She put snack meats and cheeses in another pull-out drawer. The lower, larger storage became home for salad greens, peppers, celery and other vegetables. Condiments, dressings, pickles and spreads went in the refrigerator door. For someone who'd neglected housework for months, she found it oddly relaxing to organize someone else's things. She even took that time to formulate a plan for another place to stay.

The classifieds might have someone looking for a flat mate. The dress she'd worn to dinner the night before would surely sell secondhand for enough to cover her first month's rent. She'd lay hard into job hunting and then begin the slow process of saving up enough to pay Hans back. With any luck, she'd find work that would allow her to keep writing… and once she made her first big break, most of her troubles would disappear.

The doorbell rang, startling Anna so much that she turned and knocked right into the open refrigerator door. She closed it with a groan and shuffled off to the entrance foyer, wondering. Hans hadn't said she should answer the door when he was out, but what else was she supposed to do?

It was with some relief that she opened the door to find a delivery man waiting. He held out a wide, thin box. She raised her eyebrow when she found her name on it, unable to recall ordering anything recently. There was no one that she could think of who would have shipped her something.

After signing for the package, Anna shut the door and moseyed back out to the kitchen. There she found a pair of scissors in a standard junk drawer. With those, she hacked through the packing tape and found a brand new cast iron frying pan inside the box.

"I didn't order this, did I...?"

She picked up the packing slip and invoice, scanning them until she spotted the unfamiliar billing address. That was when she realized it must have been Rapunzel or Eugene who had ordered the fry pan. Who else would order something in her name?

"Azalea Lane..."

She ran her thumb over the street address and quickly pulled out her mobile phone to take a picture of it. She would look up the address and check it out the following day. If Rapunzel or Eugene were indeed the residents, they were in for a surprise visit.

* * *

Hans set the boxed vacuum from Pierce's on the foyer floor and shrugged his coat off at the door. It had been a long afternoon downtown once he and Ariel parted ways. A successful recording session was always satisfying, but that hadn't even been the most productive part of his day. While he'd been singing, his mind had been at work.

A proposal to Ariel was no small thing; they had so much history. He wanted to put extra care into the planning since he had rushed to get the ring.

With the new year just around the corner, Hans was buzzing with enough courage to whisk Ariel off to her favorite beach after Kristoff's party. He'd called up memories and conversations of old, bits and pieces he remembered from over the years. With this, he put together what he _hoped_ would be the most breathtaking moment for her. How many women got to be proposed to at midnight on New Year's Eve?

At first, Hans had wanted to take more time and research to pick out the engagement ring. But the more he thought about Ariel moving, the more he got into a tizzy. It wasn't that he couldn't court her if she moved to Glowerhaven. His schedule was generally flexible until a tour came up. It was more the fact that Ariel would be close to his brother again.

So, he'd done a little shopping. He ended up picking out a three stone, blue topaz and diamond engagement ring in 18k white gold.

…he'd also picked up a vacuum for Anna, as promised.

There was a sudden thump from upstairs but it didn't worry him. Provided Anna stayed out of his way, it was fine. He left his keys in the basket on the half-moon console table by the door. Then, on his way into the kitchen he left the new vacuum at the bottom of the stairs for Anna to find.

With work done and a few hours left before his usual sleep time, Hans decided to spend the rest of the night practicing what he'd say to Ariel. He'd been thinking it over all day, how to best share his feelings. Nothing seemed good enough.

First, he tried to think of all the things he adored about Ariel. But between her personality and her beauty, that list was too long. Ariel's attention span was not exactly infinite.

Next he considered bringing up the 'good ol' days' to remind her that they'd had such a good thing. The only problem with that was that their romantic relationship, good as it was, had come to an end. He didn't necessarily want her to bring that up. Besides that, they had both grown since their days at the university. Their future could not, _would_ not be the same as their past because they weren't the same people they used to be. What was the point then in dredging up the past?

He sighed and ran one hand through his hair in mild agitation as he gazed out the glass slider door looking out over the patio and fjord from the kitchen eating area. The gibbous moon illuminated the frozen landscape outside.

 _Will it be too cold to go to the beach? Ugh. Focus._

From then on, he recited some of his ideas aloud to get a feel for what sounded best. He spoke to his reflection as if it were Ariel and imagined her various reactions.

"…each other for many years now, and not a day goes by that I don't regret not fighting harder that day we broke up…"

Ariel had initiated the break-up. There'd been a period of a couple of months that Hans had just… he'd been too busy. He didn't think anything of it at the time, but Ariel had tried to address his absence. There'd even been the fight weeks before she dumped him. He'd been an utter fool.

"Do you remember Vienna? The promise I made to you at the Danube Tower?"

He'd broken that promise, of course. All Hans had been able to remark on at the time Ariel left him was that she and Eric had been spending an awful lot of time together.

The abrupt _shoom_ of the vacuum starting up in the living room made him jump. He looked back over his shoulder and saw Anna had found the new hoover. She gave him a distracted wave as she ran the vacuum over the area rug. Hans turned back to the glass door, picking up where he'd left off.

"I want you… I want us to be in each other's worlds again. You've been my dearest friend for so long, but I… I've never seen you as just a friend."

The vacuum stopped. He heard Anna groan as she lifted the coffee table to put it back in place on the rug.

"I've loved you from the moment our eyes met at the summer jazz festival. Don't leave… stay. Please stay… and do me the honor of—," The vacuum went back on at full-blast, making him abandon his practiced proposal as he turned around to give Anna a disbelieving stare. She whirred past him with the vacuum on the hardwood floors, completely oblivious to his annoyance.

"Do you mind?!" Hans snapped, his voice raised so he could be heard.

Anna stopped short and jerked her head towards him in alarm. He pointed vehemently at the noisy device in her hands, satisfied when she switched it off and left it resting near the stairs. He thought he saw her make a face, but she turned away to fetch a dusting cloth from the bucket of cleaning supplies she'd left on the kitchen floor.

With a roll of his eyes, Hans turned back toward the slider doors and went back to rehearsing his proposal.

"…I…damn it. I've never seen you as just a friend," he repeated, having lost his train of thought. But it came back to him rather easily once he spoke aloud. "I've loved you from the moment our eyes met at the summer jazz festival." He smiled as he pictured that moment when her red hair and black ribbon had first caught his eye. "Don't leave… please stay and do me the honor… of being my…"

Again unable to finish, Hans trailed off distractedly under the unnerving sensation of being watched. He turned around. Sure enough, Anna was staring at him with interest as she dusted the television stand.

"Can I help you?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Is that for a role in another movie?"

"What?"

Horrified, he realized she'd been listening and his face reddened. Afraid that Anna might give her unsolicited input about his dialogue, Hans nodded and quickly elaborated before she could say any more.

"Ah. Yeah. This one's about a man who… well, he loved a girl for a long time and decides to confess how he feels before she leaves the country."

"Let me guess!" Anna interjected despite Hans's efforts. "He can't go through with the confession because the girl is in love with somebody else." A startled look crossed his face, but Anna went on. "…devastated, he quickly proposes to a wealthy girl he met recently, hoping to marry into the family and their riches. But the girl's older sister disapproves and threatens to take away the sister's inheritance if the two get engaged. Enraged, the guy constructs an elaborate plot to get rid of the sisters and inherit the estate as the younger sister's surviving husband…"

Hans blinked at the dreamy look on Anna's face as she rambled on and on.

"What? Are all your plots so outlandish?" He breezed past her, completely dumbfounded by her imagination. "Knock it off and make some dinner."

He went upstairs in a huff, pausing to glance back and watch Anna as she pulled out various pots and pans while talking to herself. He couldn't help chuckling to himself over her weirdness.

* * *

 **A/N:** Goodness gracious, I hadn't updated this since August?! My apologies. I got very wrapped up in a course I was taking. I'm going to make it a goal to update weekly, but we'll see how that goes.

Thank you for waiting and reading!


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